


Dreams Like Ashes Float Away

by RcA



Series: Carnivores [3]
Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Animal Traits, Blood and Gore, Creature Fic, Dominance/submission, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Heavy Angst, Identity Issues, Infidelity, Knotting, M/M, Marking, Minor SunDae and GDae, Pack Dynamics, Polyamory, Possessive Behavior, Rape Recovery, Suicide Attempt, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 02:07:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 60,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8184938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RcA/pseuds/RcA
Summary: In a city that merely tolerates their kind, Seunghyun and Daesung and the rest of their misfit pack question who and what they are and how they are meant to live.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct sequel to [Carnivores](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7731763). _**Please read that one first.**_
> 
> The title is a lyric from the song [Let It Burn](https://youtu.be/XG2usu-el68) by my favorite band ever, Red. Who, like Big Bang, is celebrating their 10th anniversary this year. I like to think of it as this story's anthem, or theme song. In fact, I have pieced together a soundtrack of sorts for this fic and I would love it if people would give it a listen. You can find it [at this link](http://daesungindistress.tumblr.com/post/151258544327/dreams-like-ashes-soundtrack). If you decide to check it out in full, please listen only _after_ you've finished the fic; otherwise its meaning will be largely lost on you. Or you may listen to the songs as they are listed individually at the ends of each chapter.
> 
> That said... Like Carnivores, this story is pretty hard on the guys, okay? Brace yourselves, y'all. If I've done my job right, it's going to hurt.
> 
> **Disclaimer:** This is a fictional work based on the public personas of real people, over whom I make no claim and to whom I mean no harm.
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 

 

 

 

Their wanderings take them west, always west, rising with the morning sun and turning their backs on its blinding face, marching onward over the hills and through the woods and across fields and streams until their tired feet ache and demand a period of rest. They don't always need long; sometimes it is enough to catch only few moments of relief, tumbling into the grass on their backs and taking their weight off of travel-weary legs.

Day after day, traversing the land as one, the five of them chase the sun late into the evening until it sinks below the horizon and bids them farewell for another night, handing them over to the moon's watchful gaze. Only then do they relax, bedding down under a canopy of trees and huddling together for warmth, gathering their strength to do it all again the following day.

They catch what they can along the way, consuming their kills quickly before continuing with their travels, trudging along with a single-minded determination that only Jiyong, as their alpha, has the power to inspire in them. Where he goes, they follow, now that they are set in motion.

They are five wolves in search of a new home. Five lives in pursuit of a better, more merciful future.

At his leader's urging, Daesung picks himself up off the ground without fail, driving his fatigued body forward as many times as he is asked without protest. He is simply too tired to complain, too worn to give voice to his pain; not yet dead on his feet but certain that he is fast approaching it, the journey ever westward with his packmates sapping his energy and leaving him feeling dried out and brittle like leaves in the fall.

The days blur into each other and the cycle repeats until, late one evening in the fading twilight, they come upon a walled city.

Experience has taught them a hard lesson about the hazards of such settlements; the walls exist for a reason. But something about this one seems different. Curiosity and a stubborn hope get the better of them, and at Jiyong's behest the five of them settle in at what they deem a safe distance for a much-needed, well-deserved rest.

For nearly a week they camp there outside the city gates, observing as its inhabitants depart in small group at the start of the day and return near the end, their carts often laden with fresh game. To their great surprise, the groups-- likely hunting parties-- appear to include both humans and wolves alike.

"Wolves!" Seungri shouts suddenly, and Daesung nearly jumps a foot in the air in fright. Beside him, Youngbae claps a hand over Seungri's mouth and hauls him back, pinning and silencing him until Jiyong reaches them. Seungri struggles indignantly against his hold, looking to Daesung for help; Daesung ignores him, intent on calming his racing heart.

"Where?" Jiyong demands, and in Youngbae's grip Seungri is finally allowed to speak again.

"At the gate. They just went in." Jiyong peers at their youngest in doubt, and Seungri puffs up in offense. "I saw them! They had tails and... well, just tails, but definitely wolves." He turns to Daesung. "You saw them too, right? I haven't lost my mind on this crazy cross-country trek, have I?" Jiyong cuffs him over the head for that, though the gesture lacks any real harmful intent.

Daesung nods, a little lightheaded but no less sure of what the both of them had seen. Could this be it? He had not believed it, himself, the rumors, the stories, the tall tales.... but Seungri had always been so confident, so full of faith in what Daesung had promptly written off as merely a fantasy.

A place where wolves and humans can coexist. Even Seunghyun had held a small flame of hope for the city's existence, to Daesung's continuing bemusement.

A hand settles on the back of Daesung's neck, its comfortable warm and familiar weight sinking into his skin.

"A little faith will take you far," he hears, Seunghyun's low voice drifting past him. But Daesung can give him no reply, can only stare with wide eyes at the distant city walls, as if something out of a dream.

Could this be the promised city? Have they actually found it, entirely by chance? Dismissed as a myth, a fairy tale, nothing more, yet here they stand, looking on as what seemed impossible looms as a very real possibility right before their astonished eyes.

They settle in to spy again, five tired minds reawoken, their weary eyes reopened and watching more sharply than ever.

 

\--

 

The following morning, shortly before the break of dawn, Daesung wakes abruptly to the fearsome sound of Youngbae and Seunghyun growling fiercely. The note of danger in their voices alarms him into sudden awareness. Slower to wake, Jiyong staggers to his feet and joins them, one hand rubbing furiously at sleep-clouded eyes.

They are met by humans. And wolves, too. Every one of them carries a rifle. The sight of the weapons sends a shiver of fear skittering down Daesung's spine, and a terrible truth settles in the pit of his stomach: after everything they've been through, their hopeful hearts are to be the end of them. They were wrong to think this place would be any different than the others.

One of them steps forward, adjusting the rifle in his arms. "Whoa now. Put away the teeth and claws. We're here to tell you that you can't just camp out here like this," he says. "We've been aware of you for a few days now. What are you waiting for? Come on in."

"You know what we are," Youngbae says sternly. He cuts a stiff figure at Jiyong's side, his second-in-command, ready to leap into action at any moment.

"Yes, we know that you're wolves," the man says. He gestures vaguely toward the men flanking him. "It's okay. Some of us are too."

It is the strangest thing to see, the struggle that plays out across their leader's face as Jiyong labors over the pack's next move. Like the rest of them, he had been expecting a fight. Not an invitation.

A few more words are exchanged, and the next thing Daesung knows he and his packmates are moving, walking, making their way almost leisurely in the direction of the city gate. They are all tense, holding themselves to full alertness, anticipating an ambush. Seunghyun keeps Daesung close, a protective arm held like an iron bar across the width of his back. Seungri, at least, appears hopeful. His positive attitude coupled with Seunghyun's strong presence help to ease Daesung's own growing fears as they arrive at their destination.

While the scouts leave them there and return to their work beyond the walls, the gate is lifted, permitting them entry.

"Once we go in," Daesung wonders aloud, gazing up solemnly at the raised gate, "will we ever come back out?"

"What kind of question is that?" Seungri says, eyeing him strangely. "This is new and exciting! Be excited, Daesung. Come on, smile."

Seunghyun reaches over and pinches him. "Ow! Okay, fine, sorry I tried." Daesung gives Seunghyun a grateful smile, and Seungri an apologetic one.

Once inside the walls they are ushered in quick fashion into a small building, where they wait uncertainly. The room carries the faint scent of wolf, but beyond the hint of their kind the room smells abundantly, overwhelmingly _human_. It is a scent Daesung has learned over the years to fear and avoid. He wishes he could shrink in on himself and possibly disappear altogether.

A man seated behind a desk addresses them. "Five of you? Wolves, right?"

Jiyong nods. "Tails?" the man asks. Jiyong simply nods again, and the man scribbles a note on a piece of parchment. "Turn around. Let me see."

Reluctantly they turn-- all but Jiyong, who only half-turns and reaches behind himself to take hold of his tail with one hand, lifting it for the man to see. Daesung is grateful for their leader's foresight. Instinct and years of experience have warned them against turning their backs to an enemy all at once.

Satisfied, the man jots down more notes, then moves them along to a few additional tasks. When asked to write his name, Daesung gives him a blank stare. "Spell it out for me," the man says, and Daesung feels ready to panic in earnest. What does he mean, _spell it out?_

At Daesung's obvious confusion-- his and the others, as none of them have ever needed to learn how to read or write-- the man sighs and asks him to sound out his name, " _Slowly_ , please."

"Why do they need all of this from us," Daesung frets to Seunghyun, their heads ducked together to talk in quiet tones.

"To identify us, I think. Keep track of us," Seunghyun replies, seeming greatly displeased with the current situation.

Daesung seems confused. "What about our scent?"

"This is just a guess," Seunghyun mutters, "but I don't think humans have that ability. Not like we do."

And then it is over. After all is said and done, the five of them enter the city officially with documents in hand, signed and stamped, and it is clear to not one of them what they are supposed to do with the flimsy pieces of parchment.

A kindly-looking old man on a wooden cart pulls up beside them. Daesung goggles at the creature harnessed to the front of it. He has seen horses at a distance a few times in his life, but this is the closest he has ever been to one. The beast is huge. Easily twice the size of the largest deer Daesung and the rest of his pack have feasted on. An animal of this scale would keep them fed for longer than he can imagine. The horse stamps a hoof into the dirt in impatience-- or possibly in irritation, sensing the direction of his thoughts-- and Daesung nearly trips over himself in his haste to get away.

"Hello!" the man greets them with a friendly smile on his weathered face. "You guys are new here, right? Wolves, huh? You look lost. Ever been in a place like this before?"

"That obvious?" Jiyong says with fraying smile.

"Climb on. I'll take you where you need to go. You've got papers, right? Let me see-- oh! Yes, this isn't far."

Off they go, and a few minutes into the ride Seungri tears his paperwork by accident.

"What is this?! It tore so easily!" he cries, shocked and appalled. "I didn't mean to!"

"Sorry, Seungri. This means you have to leave," Youngbae says, utterly straight-faced, and even Daesung believes him for a moment.

"No way." Seungri looks stricken. He turns to Jiyong for confirmation. "Does it really?" Jiyong scolds him for his carelessness and confiscates Seungri's paperwork before he can do it further damage. Then, for good measure, he takes everyone else's parchments too. For safekeeping.

Youngbae cracks a grin and Seungri sulks, running a hand through his messy hair where Jiyong had taken yet another swipe at him.

"I was just messing with you," Youngbae says, his face softening as he lays a hand on Seungri's bent knee. Daesung recognizes the gesture for what it is: he is calling a truce.

"It's not funny. Not right now," Seungri grumbles but lets Youngbae's hand remain where it rests. "I don't know what's going on. We just got here and this place is crazy already."

"Hey, we'll figure it out," Jiyong adds, seeming a little calmer now that he has everyone's documents in hand and under his control. The cart rocks as it rolls over the uneven cobblestone streets en route to, well, wherever they are headed. Daesung hopes their driver knows where he's going, where he is taking them. More than that, he hopes the man's intentions are as good as they seem.

As far as Daesung is concerned, humans are... _trustworthy_ is not the first word that comes to mind.

"And Seungri, don't worry about this," Jiyong adds, flicking at Seungri's slightly torn piece of parchment. "You're stuck with us, okay? You can't just get rid of us that easily." When Seungri grins brightly at that, openly pleased, they find that they can all breathe a little easier.

And so begins their new life.

 

\--

 

Hopeful though they are, fitting in proves to be a greater struggle than anticipated.

To everyone's chagrin, they can no longer hunt for what they eat. It is an appalling truth. Gone are the days of setting out on coordinated hunts, strategically stalking and driving their prey across the land and into each other's waiting claws, then jaws. With the small allowance they've been given to help them begin their new lives, they must buy their meat from the market.

It's a strange enough concept all on its own, but adding insult to injury, the way the meat comes all cut up into pieces by the butcher unsettles them.

Their adjustment is clumsy at first, as they find shopping for their sustenance under the piercing and often distrustful gazes of human shopkeepers to be harrying at the best of times, unbearable at the worst, and always downright humiliating. It's as if they have been swiftly stripped of their power, their independence, their ability to provide for themselves in the only way they've ever known how. One night Seunghyun brings home a bag of something called "meat for stew". Seunghyun does not know what stew is and does not intend to make it, has no plans to ruin the meat by suspending it over a flame. Raw meat is good meat, and that is how they will eat it, as they always have.

Seunghyun empties the bag onto their table, the meat chunks spilling out into a wet, bloody pile atop the wood, and Daesung freezes up at the sight of it. It takes Seunghyun a shamefully long moment spent watching his mate curiously to understand why.

It reminds Daesung of when Seunghyun had forced him to eat during the famine, the wolf meat which he had torn into pieces beforehand to disguise what it really was.

Seunghyun does not regret what he did, will not apologize for forcing a meal on Daesung during a time when every day brought with it the same old struggle, hunger a certainty, _death_ a very real possibility. He does not anguish over the wolf meat which he had reduced to shreds beforehand to disguise it. Will not grieve for the muscle he had carefully stripped from the bones of a rival wolf and carried home to forcibly feed his mate. Holds no remorse for how he had stuffed the bloody pieces into Daesung's unwilling mouth and urged him to swallow, to accept Seunghyun's simple offering that would _keep him alive_.

He did it to save Daesung's _life_. That is what matters most. He does not regret that he did it; only regrets the way Daesung's eyes go a little haunted when he lays eyes on a mound of dark meat, be it small cuts, strips, chunks, or shreds. Precisely what Seunghyun has dumped on the table before him just now.

Seunghyun keeps a close eye on Daesung as the other wolf eats his share dutifully, noting his mate's subtle signs of distress, his eyes squeezing shut as if in remembered pain.

And yet, sometimes they want more than just cuts of meat. They want the nutrient-rich organs. They want the long bones of the legs for the marrow they contain. Such parts would ordinarily be the first devoured upon a fresh kill; here, they seem nowhere to be found.

At a nearby grocer Seunghyun finds himself eyeing the various cuts of meat on display before him. The shop owner sees him looking and hurries over. Seunghyun gets the distinct impression that the man is acting on an impulse to guard his product, rather than hurrying over to assist a paying customer.

Seunghyun is a paying customer. Or might be, if this man has what he's after.

He stands awkwardly, feeling utterly out of his element. Only a few feet away from a slab of meat... That he can't just reach out and take it frustrates him endlessly.

"Can I help you?" the shop owner asks. He comes close but keeps the counter between them.

"This is good meat," Seunghyun says stiffly, feeling amateurish like he hasn't in so long. "But do you have the insides?"

The man stares at him. Seunghyun flounders. "The organs. Heart? Liver? Kidneys? Maybe even bones that are fresh? The marrow is good--"

"No," the man cuts him off abruptly. "We throw that stuff out. No one wants it."

"Well then," Seunghyun fidgets. "Can you hold onto it in the future? My pack and I--"

"No. They're by-products. We don't need 'em."

"They're the best part!" Seunghyun argues. He cannot believe what he is hearing. The organs... by-products? The _heart?_

When they had been weak with hunger, Seunghyun had shared a deer's heart with Daesung; it had revitalized them, lending their spent bodies renewed strength and energy. For a time afterward they had returned to their usual playful selves. Seunghyun recalls the afternoon he had discovered Daesung rolling over the grass outside their home in joyful boredom. Energy to spare and nowhere to direct it... until Seunghyun had found him.

The man crosses his arms and asks, "You're pretty new here, aren't you?" Seunghyun nods. "Look, let me give you a word of advice, wolf. Keep asking around for animal innards and people aren't going to take very kindly to you. Reminds them that you're _different_."

Seunghyun scowls at him and the man only shrugs in reply. "If you don't believe me, keep asking around. Go on, paint a target on your back, why don't you? You'll see it to be true enough."

"You're not willing to make one exception," Seunghyun says dangerously, his voice dipping low into something deadly without his trying, a challenge that Seunghyun doesn't mean to make.

"Listen here, wolf," the man grumbles, looking him firmly in the eye. "You come in and buy what's on display like everyone else. With cash, like everyone else. You know what cash is, right?"

Seunghyun sneers at him. He does have cash, but in such a limited amount... "You willing to barter?" he tries. He is familiar enough with that method.

"What do you got that I would want?" Seunghyun purses his lips and thinks fast, mentally checking his inventory and coming up empty. At his lost expression the man scoffs, "That's what I thought. You're new here. Bet you've got nothing."

It's true. They have nothing but the clothes on their backs and the formerly vacant structure that the city had generously set them up in. It is more a shack than anything, but given that they are used to the most modest of accommodations-- they really don't need much-- it passes for a house.

A house. Not yet home. Perhaps not ever home, Seunghyun fears. They have barely been here a week and already he dislikes this place immensely.

So they don't have much. They do, however, have each other. That counts for something, right? And Seunghyun has Daesung. That is all he really cares about.

Seunghyun seethes with quiet anger, unaccustomed to this kind of helplessness. Unable to act lash out, constrained as he is by the rules of this strange society. He feels incompetent here, ineffective, like a pup attempting to snap its tiny jaws closed around prey for the first time and missing badly, his soft gums and small teeth clamping down on air.

He would like his teeth to clamp down on this man's neck. Wild game is always best, but denied for too long already, Seunghyun would gladly settle for _his_ organs.

"Now scram, wolf. Come back later when you're serious about buying something."

It takes every ounce of his diminishing willpower to turn on his heel and leave the building.

Their kind have been natural enemies for too long. Seunghyun did not expect the state of things to be entirely different here, but still... Their subtle condescension grates at his nerves, and in outright defiance of his volatile nature, Seunghyun must allow it. He stews in his anger all the way home.

When Seunghyun relays the conversation to the others, Jiyong ridicules the humans for their wastefulness, their blatant disregard for their resources no different than the neighboring packs they left behind, abandoning perfectly good food in the fields to rot in the sun. Not too far away from this place the five of them were starving to death for months on end, the passing seasons witness to their bodies turning thin and frail, while the people of this city were ignorantly dumping perfectly good food into the ground.

They still _are_ , Seunghyun concludes with growing resentment. Now they are here, seeing the humans' folly for themselves, and they must tolerate it? Accept it? Conform to it?

Seungri comes back one night, something soft and wet in each hand. Closer inspection reveals a liver and a single lung. Seunghyun demands to know where he got them, and Seungri grins back at him gleefully.

"Someone dropped these in the trash! Right out back behind the building. Crazy, huh?"

Seungri never ceases to surprise Seunghyun with his reckless daring. He strides over and snatches the liver out of Seungri's hand, staring down at it like he's just unearthed gold.

Jiyong, however, swats him on the head-- always on the head-- and Seungri yelps in alarm. "You're going to get in trouble for stealing."

"It's not stealing if they threw it out, right?"

For once Seunghyun agrees with him, Seungri's reasoning seeming sound enough. That is, until the night Seungri comes back with a pair of painful-looking welts across his side and back, the skin red and inflamed where the marks wrap around his torso.

"Maybe they don't want me picking through their trash, after all," he says with a rueful grin, flinching as Jiyong's careful fingers inspect the damage.

Seunghyun admires him for trying, at least. It is more than he had thought to do.

 

\--

 

Of course, the small amount of cash they were given upon entry only lasts them so long. Very soon they require more of it, and a little asking around reveals to Seunghyun how they must obtain it.

"Wolves, huh? We've got just the thing for you," he is told, and Seunghyun grins when he hears it.

They join the city's hunting unit.

Scattered herds of goats, sheep, and cattle supply the bulk of the city's demand for flesh. The rest comes from a healthy population of wild game beyond the walls.

Seunghyun's gums itch at the thought of sinking his fangs into a deer again. This is something he can do and can do _well_ , a task he is built for. As the five of them make their way together to enlist, he senses that his packmates feel the same, sharing in his nervous excitement, restless with anticipation.

They arrive at their destination on the appointed day. They can't read the writing on their signs, but the flow of people into the building-- humans and wolves alike-- and the crudely painted image of two crossed hunting rifles seems self-explanatory, if a little troubling.

As soon as they've passed through the door they stop in their tracks, stunned. Hung in rows upon racks on the wall is an arsenal of hunting rifles. Some appear more worn than others, but all look ready for action and as deadly as they know these weapons to be. Seunghyun's gut twists in apprehension, all his former excitement extinguished, his yearning for the hunt snuffed out in an instant.

_Shit_ , he thinks, suddenly aware of Daesung beside him, knowing exactly what is going to happen in the second before it does.

Before Seunghyun can catch him Daesung backpedals, hurrying out of the building. In his haste he knocks aside other hunters, veterans and new recruits alike, who grumble and complain. Some of them are wolves as well and they sneer at him as he goes. Seunghyun whirls on his heel to go after him.

Jiyong steps into his path. "You stay here," he says with authority, a warm hand on Seunghyun's shoulder. "I'll take him back."

"I should go after him."

"You'll be good at this," Jiyong insists. "Stay here, sign up. Make us proud." Jiyong gives him a grin that Seunghyun can't find it in himself to return.

"I should have known." Seunghyun feels awful, a pang of guilt hitting him hard. They all have their reasons to fear guns, but Daesung has come closer than any of them, staring down the barrel of one with only a fraction of a second separating him from certain death. Seunghyun had promised his mate that he would never come face to face with one of those horrid tools again. Yet here they are.

"We didn't know. Or, at least, we had hoped..." Jiyong reasons, trailing off. "It's fine. He'll be fine." They share a pained look, until Jiyong cranes his head around to peer out the door.

"I've got to go after him. Tell the others for me?"

Seunghyun glances around himself and finds that Youngbae and Seungri have been carried across the room, shuffled along with the incoming crowd. He nods and, with great reluctance, ducks back inside the building to join them and the rest of the new recruits.

He'll decide what to do about Daesung later. After himself, Jiyong is the next best thing for their skittish packmate, his strong presence a salve to calm Daesung's frazzled nerves.

But to Seunghyun's deep dismay, every member of the hunting party is given a rifle to keep and care for; it is their livelihood, after all. A weapon of destruction on loan. Their human squad leaders prohibit the wolves among them from hunting as they please, forbidding the old way, the natural way. The _better_ way.

Seunghyun is so outraged he cannot even speak, staring blankly ahead as he feels the weight of their constraints growing, like chains clamped over his wrists and ankles. It had been bad enough to feel locked in a cage. Now he feels completely restrained.

"It's inefficient," they are told, "and it drives the animals too far from the city. We need to keep them close. Besides," his squad leader says, addressing the wolves in their party. "The rest of us can't keep up with a chase that could go on for miles. We stick together out there. Got it?"

And so it goes, but no matter what reasons the humans have for using them, Seunghyun cannot _stand_ the guns.

Worse still, the party members themselves keep nothing of what they kill. The downed animal is taken apart in the field, its belly split open where it lies and its internal organs shoveled out onto the dirt to aid in cooling the meat quickly. The carcass is then loaded onto a cart and taken into the city to be sold to a local butcher, and the members of the hunting party are paid for their work.

The worst part of the whole business is the field dressing. Seunghyun curls his lip at the practice; humans are so _fragile_ , their digestive tracts unable to handle even a little spoiled meat. Of course wolves prefer their meals fresh, but if hungry enough Seunghyun will not turn his nose up at good meat that has gone just a little bad. His body can take it even if it's not to his taste.

"What happens to the organs?" Seunghyun asks one day as the innards are gathered up in a fellow hunter's hands, a glistening heap of wet flesh ripe for the picking. To Seunghyun the sight is like a gold mine, the bounty bagged and crated and loaded onto the cart along with the rest of their kill.

He knows by now that the local butcher will not want them. That much, at least, he has learned.

"These nasty things?" asks the man fitting a lid onto the crate. "We give these to the coyotes."

"The coyotes?" Seunghyun's hearing is just fine-- great, in fact-- but he must have heard wrong.

"Yeah, we use 'em to lure coyotes in and trap them. Their fur is pretty valuable this time of year, you know? When it's cold and their coats are thick. Trappers gotta make a living too."

Seunghyun can't believe what he is hearing. The best parts of the animal are wasted on coyotes, competent enough predators at the best of times but scavengers all the rest. He and his pack have chased coyotes away from their kills too often, running them off with the threat of sharp teeth and claws. Coyotes are pests in Seunghyun's eyes, more akin to mosquitos than anything.

"Can I have a piece?" Seunghyun tries, hopeful about his chances. "Even just something small. The kidneys maybe, or..."

The man makes a face at him. They must go through this with every wolf that joins.

"I don't know," he says, hesitating. Seunghyun does not miss the way he secures the lid nervously. "I'd like to help you, but... They usually make sure everything is accounted for back at camp. I don't want to get in trouble."

Seunghyun grits his teeth and lets the matter go. Fucking coyotes. Fucking _humans_ and their strange ways.

A short silence passes as their squad begins the trek back to the city gate. Finally Seunghyun asks, an idle curiosity taking hold of him, "The coyotes... What do you trap them with?"

"Foothold traps usually. In fact, we might have one right... yep, here!" The man lifts something out of the cart, holding it triumphantly over his head. The metal jaws are a bit rusted, the chain links clinking heavily against themselves a sound Seunghyun can never forget.

At the sight of it Seunghyun feels suddenly queasy. He remembers Daesung caught fast in a trap just like it, held in place on the forest floor while he had howled out his anguish to his nearby packmates, a desperate cry for rescue. Seunghyun remembers hurling himself onto his mate, covering his body with his own, expecting the stunning pain of a bullet ripping through him, offering himself up in Daesung's place without thought or hesitation.

But the pain never came, as the bullet never left the hunter's gun. His packmates had made sure of that, stripping the hunter of his weapon and eliminating the threat in short order. The gun and the trap they had buried. The man's bloodied remains they had left as carrion for the crows.

None of them have forgotten the events of that day. How could they? Daesung remembers the gun; Seunghyun remembers the trap. All of them remember the fear.

Seunghyun wants to throw down the rifle in his arms, wants to crush it against the ground, wants to run far away from it. He does not wish to play this game any longer, this folly that they willingly walked into, not knowing what awaited them. He wants nothing to do with it.

But Seunghyun has a duty and a responsibility. Right now their need is greater than the ghost of a bad memory.

 

\--

 

It does not escape Seunghyun's notice, where the city has chosen to plant them. All of their neighbors are human, and he sees this as no accident. From what he can gather, each district is composed of one wolf pack amid a large population of humans. They are surrounded, yet isolated.

Good, Seunghyun thinks. They have never done well sharing space with other wolves, anyway.

He has no doubt that the human-to-wolf ratio here is high for a reason. After all, wolves are highly territorial and cannot live in close proximity to other packs. Conflict among wolves runs rampant in small communities, according to faint memories from his developing years. Here in this vast city Seunghyun crosses paths with other wolves from time to time, often many blocks away from their home. Strangely, they seem to keep to their assigned areas. The city is large enough, he supposes.

And yet... Seunghyun suspects something more sinister at play here, a strategy unfolding slowly all around them. Fencing in a small number of wolves with a large number of humans ensures that the wolves are kept in check. They cannot sequester themselves here, cannot cling to each other's comfortable familiarity, disengaging from and shutting out the rest of the world as they have always done.

In his short time here, Seunghyun has come to see that the humans' goal is not segregation as he had expected, nor is it coexistence as they had collectively hoped. No, the plan for them is total immersion. It is integration. It is assimilation.

_To hell with their plans for us_ , Seunghyun thinks. No matter what rules the humans who control this place impose on him, he will not change for them.

 

\--

 

It is hard for wolves to find good work here. Jiyong is fortunate to take a position assisting a tailor, to everyone's surprise including his own. Jiyong only smiles at them, seeming very pleased with himself. Shortly after, he begins patching all their worn clothes.

Daesung sits and watches with interest as he works with needle and thread, his hands surprisingly deft. Occasionally he jabs himself with the needle's pointed end, jerking away and nursing the injured finger between his lips. Always though, he returns to his work, overtaken by his need to repair their old things, stitching up the damaged fabric with a determination Daesung has not seen in him in some time.

After so much of Daesung's silent staring, Jiyong lifts his head to look at him. "Did you need something?"

Daesung swallows nervously and asks, "Do you think you could fix the holes in my jeans?"

"I thought you liked your jeans all torn up," Jiyong says, pausing to set down the needle. He seems surprised, and for good reason. Daesung has always liked the rips and tears in his jeans. Like the marks Seunghyun has left on his body, the blemishes on Daesung's clothes serve as reminders of the many years they have belonged to him. They are comfortable and worn, perfectly imperfect.

Now though... Daesung thinks the shredded denim makes him look wild. It is just a thought, but nicer clothes might help his transition here. People might be less prone to scurrying away from him when they spot him on the streets. Though they try not to show it, to a wolf's heightened senses, their fear of him is broadcast like a beacon, impossible to miss. He sees it, smells it, _feels_ it.

He may be a wolf, but fear is not the reaction Daesung wants from them.

"I do like them a little torn up, actually. Or, I did," Daesung says, picking distractedly at the frayed threads over one knee, the denim gaping wide and revealing an expanse of skin. "I just think... new life, new jeans? Well, good as new, anyway."

"I don't disagree with you," Jiyong says wryly, "but you have more faith in my abilities than I do. I'm still learning, you know."

"I do have faith in you," Daesung replies, aiming at him an encouraging smile. "And anyway, they don't have to look perfect. Just closing up the bigger holes would be enough, I think."

Jiyong shrugs. "Well, just give them to me when you're ready."

Daesung peels his jeans off his legs right then and there, balling them up and holding them out to the other wolf.

Jiyong just laughs and accepts the wadded up offering. "You have more than one pair, right? I've got others to finish. This could take me a few days."

"Yeah, of course. That's just... the worst of them." And it is also his favorite pair that he has put through the most, has worn lovingly and treated carelessly. Jiyong certainly has his work cut out for him.

"I'll do my best."

"Thanks, Jiyong."

The other wolf reaches over and ruffles Daesung's messy hair with affection. When he takes his seat again, the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his lips, Daesung knows he is secretly pleased. Nothing satisfies their alpha more than knowing he is needed, and Daesung will gladly grant him that. When Jiyong is feeling good all of them breathe a little easier.

Seunghyun passes through the room, and when he sees Daesung standing there with legs bare, he wastes no time in guiding him to the nearest wall, kissing him soundly. Under the insistent press of his mate's lips Daesung pushes back, a soft, appreciative sound escaping him.

"Alright guys, I'm trying to work here," Jiyong says, still smiling fondly. "You've got a room all to yourselves here. Go and use it."

He and Seunghyun go, never once parting between here and there.

The truth is, these days they could all use a boost, a little extra cheer, and Daesung does what he can to make that happen. He just wants everyone to be happy. His pack, his mate, his human neighbors... everyone.

 

\--

 

Daesung ends up working for a baker, a woman who saw his smile on the street in passing and said the warmth of it reminded her of freshly baked cookies, hot from the oven, their fragrance filling the room with comfort and cheer. Having never seen nor smelled these things called cookies, Daesung has no understanding of this, her meaning as obscure to him as early morning fog. But, believing it to be a compliment, he accepts it with his usual friendly smile.

The next thing he knows, not three days later, he is standing in a little storefront filled with breads and sugared confections, their inviting sights and smells drawing in passersby from off the street.

To his chagrin, Daesung cannot eat the things he learns to bake. The blander foods he can tolerate only tiny nibbles of, but even then, he doesn't much care for them.

What Daesung finds he loves about the bakeshop is not the breads and cakes, but the way his treats light up the faces of the people who visit, especially the children. He enjoys bringing happiness to those around him. That this feeling of well-wishing extends beyond his packmates is a curious thing indeed. Wolves are selfish creatures at heart, caring only for themselves and their own.

But these people... He wants to please them too.

It is strange at first to tolerate so many humans flocking around him, even knowing that they mean him no harm. The small ones are especially perplexing to him, and strangely charming. Daesung does not miss the way mothers pull their young ones close when he emerges from behind the counter and they catch sight of his tail. He lets it hang behind him as limp and non-threatening as he can manage without making it disappear entirely. At times he takes extra care to tuck his tail tightly against his body in the hope that their customers might simply overlook it.

Even so, despite his best efforts the head baker soon enough asks him to keep his tail concealed.

"I'm sorry. It makes the customers uncomfortable," she explains as kindly as possible, smiling sadly at him. She then hands him an apron that wraps fully around his back and covers him to his knees. "But you're so good with them, I would hate to hide you away in the back. I modified this for you. It should do the trick."

It does. Daesung wears the apron obediently, and their customers are none the wiser, exchanging pleasantries with him from that point onward as easily as if he were one of their own.

 

\--

 

One evening Seunghyun passes a cluster of wolves on the street, an entire pack by the looks of it, eight members strong. They don't seem to notice him, not once even looking his way-- perhaps they simply don't care-- yet the sight and smell of foreign wolves still prompts Seunghyun's hair to stand on end, his tail unconsciously rising behind him in an instinctive act of aggression. His leisurely walk home comes to an abrupt stop as he stands there on the cobblestone road and glares at the other wolves, challenging them, inviting them to meet him in a clash of teeth and claws.

But to Seunghyun's deeply felt disappointment, they continue on their way as if he does not exist, ignoring him entirely, eventually moving far away enough that their combined scent no longer reaches him, a light breeze lifting it up and carrying it away. Seunghyun breathes and gradually settles, and as he calms he comes to startling realization.

None of them had tails.

"You could get that removed, you know," a voice suggests from off to one side.

Seunghyun turns to the man and stares at him-- rather dumbly, he expects. Get what removed?

"That tail of yours," the man clarifies, pointing at the furry appendage still jutting out behind Seunghyun, the evidence of his animal aggression impossible to miss.

"My tail? What about it?" Seunghyun says, going on the defensive.

"Like I _just_ said, you could get it removed." The man jams hands in his coat pockets and props himself against the doorpost, shrugging. "It's hard to hide, isn't it? You stick out. Life here would be easier for you if you had it done. It's really not a big deal. I'm just saying."

Seunghyun gapes at him, at the flippant way he suggests that Seunghyun _amputate a limb_.

He growls, "Like I would ever do such a thing." His tail is a part of him like any other, a limb little different than his arms and legs-- an extension of his _spine_. Seunghyun does not give his tail much thought most days because it has always been there, a natural, integral part of him... but if taken away?

Seunghyun banishes the thought.

"Take some time to think about it. You'll see what I mean eventually," the man says, unnervingly chatty in Seunghyun's opinion. "I know a guy. I'll admit, it isn't a pretty procedure, but you'll live as long as it's done right." He smirks then, something inherently cruel about it. "Probably."

Seunghyun resists the urge to show him his teeth and quickly leaves, fingers tightly clutching his tail all the way home.

When he make it back he inspects his own tail-- and Daesung's-- with a sudden caring, gently stroking over the fur with a reverence he has not given their tails in what feels like ages. Daesung doesn't question it, the special attention, only leans in close and allows Seunghyun to run adoring hands over however much of him he pleases.

He wonders, would Daesung ever opt for such an outrageous procedure? The way his mate is behaving these days... he has become timid in a way Seunghyun doesn't recognize. Daesung has always been the quiet type, but here within these walls he seems to grow unusually subdued. Seunghyun gets the nagging feeling that something important in the other wolf is changing right under his nose, slowly enough that he can't quite put his finger on the true nature of the transformation.

He combs fingers through the undercoat of Daesung's tail, down close to the skin where the fur is soft, and the question remains: would Daesung ever want to give up this part of himself?

_No_. Seunghyun dismisses the thought as quickly as it came. Daesung is far too chicken to ever willingly have his own tail _chopped off_. He buries the issue, his worries scattering like dandelion seeds released to the wind.

Though, Daesung does seem happy enough here. Seunghyun wishes he could say the same for himself. That night he cuddles up to the other wolf on their shared bed and relays to him what he had seen and heard on his walk home. He laughs at the look of fright that blooms on Daesung's face, the way his fingers and toes and lips curl in imagined horror.

Full of promises these days, Seunghyun swears he will never let that happen to either of them. To any of them.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: [Shadows](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDeThnWFV4cU5uRk0) (Seunghyun)


	2. Chapter 2

Wasteful and _foolish_ , that is what these people are.

Seunghyun can do nothing but stand by and watch, appalled, as members of his hunting party drop one clump of dirt after another over something that, as far as Seunghyun is concerned, is worth its weight in gold.

He and the others are getting by just fine on their diet of meat-- on muscle alone, since that is all they can get their hands on here-- but some days Seunghyun still _craves_ the taste of heartier flesh, of something more robust. If the humans are not going to retain the organs of their kill for some other use, why not just let him have them?

"We don't need any more," one of the men doing the shoveling says. "Winter is over. Spring is just around the corner. Demand for fur is down, no need to use it as bait anymore. Best to just get rid of it all."

Seunghyun advances, straining against arms suddenly holding him back. "Don't just fucking _bury it all_. Look, I'll take it. My pack and I can use it."

The man frowns at him. "This is protocol. Bury the innards. We don't want to be attracting predators," he explains. "Or scavengers."

"You have no idea what you're throwing away!" Seunghyun clenches his fists tightly and bristles all over, struggling to contain his fury at this injustice. That right there is _good meat_. They can use that meat. They can _enjoy_ it.

"Why are you so obsessed with this anyway? Do you see any others crying about it?" The mans scowls, returning to his work. "Just let it go, wolf, or you're gonna get kicked off the squad."

Unable to contain his outrage any longer, Seunghyun does let go-- of the terrible snarl he had been choking back, the harsh sound ringing out across the clearing. At the same time his sharp canines drop instantly, his lip curling back just enough to show them off.

The man wielding the shovel takes a fearful step back, clutching the tool like a weapon in case he needs to use it, and Seunghyun feels more satisfied with himself than he has in a long time.

A shout comes at them from the side. "Wolf! Stand down!" Seunghyun hears, but pays the newcomer no mind. Another shovelful of dirt lands on the pile of buried organs and Seunghyun darts forward, the men restraining him releasing him, and swipes at the hole in the ground, clawed hand coming up clutching something soft and wet.

In the next second he finds himself on the ground, crushed under the weight of several of his squad members.

"Take his rifle!"

The weapon is wrestled off his back-- he had forgotten it was strapped there, had never grown accustomed to it to begin with-- and Seunghyun is yanked to his feet roughly.

His squad leader addresses him, shaking his head at Seunghyun in disappointment. "Since the day you joined you have been pegged a risk," he says. "You're unpredictable. You're dangerous. You don't follow the rules."

"That's because your rules are shit," Seunghyun spits.

The man narrows his eyes at him. "Aren't wolves all about teamwork? Working together to ensure a successful hunt?"

"Not like this," Seunghyun growls, nearly shaking with rage. "We don't hunt like this. Our way is better."

"Better," the man echoes. He leans back and appraises Seunghyun. "Look at you. You're so primitive, spitting and snarling like some animal. Can't you control yourself?"

"Well _fuck_ you, too," Seunghyun shouts, pulling on the men restraining him, their arms and hands tightening around him, throwing all their combined weight into wrenching him back. "If I couldn't control myself, I would have torn you apart by now. You'd be a mess of blood and bones on the ground before you could even think to stop me."

A tense moment passes between them, Seunghyun breathing hard in the silence.

"All I know is this," the man before him concludes. "You are too treacherous to keep around. You're a good hunter, but you're not worth the risk. You are _dismissed_ , Seunghyun."

He knew this was going to happen eventually, but it hurts no less.

"When we get back to the city, put away your things and go home," the man continues. He looks down at the organ still held in Seunghyun's hand and scoffs at him. "Consider that your final pay."

Seunghyun's eyes flit to the thing he holds, for the first time taking a look at what he had grabbed.

The heart. He got the heart.

The squad leader turns and addresses the rest of his men "We're done here. Let him go." With obvious reluctance, the men release him, and Seunghyun swivels and stalks away, desperately needing to be away from these people.

He refuses to hang his head in defeat. He is grateful, at least, that Youngbae and Seungri were not around to witness his failure. They will likely hear about it on their own as word makes it from one squad to another. He is disgusted at the way gossip spreads like wildfire among them.

All the way back to the walls Seunghyun clasps the deer's heart tightly, glaring daggers at anyone who wanders too close to him and his prize, guarding it zealously. He paid a steep price for it, and it is all he has now.

Once inside the walls, back at camp Seunghyun dumps his things haphazardly on the table, his ammunition spilling across its surface. In his simmering anger it is so gratifying to see the unused bullets fall to the floor, rolling over the table's edge like droplets of rain from the eaves of a building.

He collects his few belongings and heads home.

The sight of him walking the streets with a bloody heart clutched between clawed fingers sends people fleeing, women and children mostly, though a few passing wolves glance over at him in mild interest. Eventually Seunghyun tucks it under his jacket, and the gore on the heart's surface seeps through the material, leaving a dark stain right over his own.

At home, he gifts it to Daesung.

  
 

\--

  
 

Before long Daesung's hair has grown out so long that his bangs cover his eyes and hinder his vision. The day he steps in a shallow pothole on the street and falls, nearly breaking his ankle-- luckily he comes out of it with only a sprain-- Jiyong offers to cut his hair for him.

"What is that?" Daesung says fearfully as Jiyong approaches him with what looks to be two slender knife blades fused together. They make a hissing sound when Jiyong moves them, the blades sliding past each other.

"They're called scissors," Jiyong says, pulling them open and closed. "Neat, huh?"

"I don't like them."

"You never like anything new," Jiyong sighs, circling around behind Daesung and taking a section of his hair in hand. "You're too cautious for your own good, Daesung."

Daesung pouts even though he knows Jiyong can't see it from his place behind him. "It's my survival instinct. It's served me well over the years, I'll have you know."

"Yes, I know. Now hold still."

Daesung does-- he holds _very_ still-- and marvels as clippings of his hair float to the floor all around him.

 

\--

 

Ejected from the hunting party permanently, Seunghyun grows desperate to make himself useful again. His packmates have all found ways to keep themselves occupied, pulling in a steady enough income to support the five of them. Even Daesung has found work at a bakery, at the baker's kind request. Seunghyun huffs in fond exasperation; such is Daesung's magnetism, that work opportunities would find him even when not actively searching.

Seunghyun, however...

"You're kind of abrasive, Seunghyun," Youngbae replies when asked. Seunghyun is searching for answers, and he knows he can trust Youngbae and Jiyong, his two packmates who he has practically grown up with, to give it to him straight.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Seunghyun grunts, not exactly pleased with Youngbae's response.

"People are afraid of you. And you like that, don't you? That's your problem."

His ability to instill fear is a fine quality for a wolf, but in this strange new world filled with humans who do not favor his kind, Seunghyun has been cautioned to soften his ways for the sake of survival and a smooth settling in.

But there is still the matter of putting himself to work again. Every day that Daesung goes off to the bakery and leaves Seunghyun behind, the air around their shared bed heavy with their combined musk, their dried come on the sheets and on each other, Seunghyun feels less like the dominant wolf he is and more like a kept creature.

Many days, in the early hours when the world is very still and quiet, he rolls over onto Daesung and eases into him, settling one exquisite inch at a time into the other's heat, his body relaxed and heavy with sleep. And when he has finished he stays there, seated in him, laying open-mouthed kisses on a sleepy and sated Daesung until his knot swells up inside so large that they cannot separate, physically cannot part.

Daesung sometimes complains that Seunghyun is going to make him late for work; Seunghyun drowns out his protests with more warm kisses and wandering hands, keeps him there under him for as long as he can, the two of them alone in their darkened room-- curtains drawn, the sun slung below the horizon, the coming day still just out of sight, beyond their reach.

It is not in his nature to be cared for or coddled. That is not who or what he is meant to be, Seunghyun tells himself fiercely.

He stops by the local butcher and offers his services. Processing meat for consumption? He can do that. He has many years of experience. Well, he has experience consuming. The processing part he will have to learn, but Seunghyun is confident enough.

"Like I would let a wolf work here," the butchers says, sneering at him.  "That would be like letting a fox guard the henhouse."

The expression is somewhat lost on him, but he dislikes the man's tone and his ugly, twisted face as he practically spits the words at him. All Seunghyun hears is a human comparing him to a lowly fox, and he feels insulted and affronted.

A fox? Seunghyun is a _wolf_. He has killed and _eaten_ foxes.

Seunghyun says as much to the man, and the butcher chases him off with blade held high before he can go into too much detail.

 

\--

 

It isn't long before the people around Daesung encourage him to go out and socialize outside of work. More importantly, they bid him to meet and spend some quality time with people outside of his pack. The baker Daesung works for invites him to join her and a host of her friends at a gathering they hold weekly.

"There will be a great campfire, it's lovely," she says. And when she sees his hesitation, she adds, "Your friends are invited too."

Daesung isn't sure, but the last thing he wants to do is disappoint his new employer, who has always been kind to him. But he cannot go alone.

He shows up the following week with the entire pack close at his side-- Seunghyun closest of all, of course. He and the others huddle around each other, as far away from their human hosts as they can manage without leaving the circle altogether.

A man approaches them, and they look up at him, five pairs of wary eyes. Their blatant distrust doesn't seem to bother him. "Here, try this," he says, handing them each a straight piece of wood like a stick with a piece of burnt flesh stabbed onto the end. It is meat, there is no doubt about that, but it seems... ruined.

"...What am I supposed to do with it?" Daesung asks, not understanding why they would hand him such a thing. He sees the others giving their portions the same confused looks.

"Eat it, of course!" A woman joins in, laughing prettily into her hand.

Daesung examines the meat hanging off the end of his skewer. It is _burnt_. Is this how humans eat their meat? Why? Glancing up he finds his packmates watching each other helplessly, every one of them appearing as lost as Daesung feels.

"It's just meat. You guys eat a lot of that, right?" says the man who had passed them their skewers. "What's wrong? Don't tell me you normally eat it raw."

"We do," Daesung replies faintly, a little queasy at the sight of the still-smoking flesh. This is definitely not how this was meant to be consumed, he is sure of it.

"And you _like_ it? It doesn't make you sick?" another asks.

"Yes. And no, we don't get sick." Daesung is rapidly growing flustered under all the attention, the questions lobbed at him one after another, the many curious eyes watching him.

"Your kind is so strange," the same woman from before says with a lopsided smile, and her face provokes in Daesung the distinct feeling of being mocked. Humans think wolves are strange? _Humans_ are the strange ones.

" _You're_ strange," he hears Seunghyun mutter under his breath, always one to speak aloud the things the both of them are thinking. His voice is strong and clear to Daesung, but a few moments pass with no reaction and it is clear that none of their human company heard it.

Right. Enhanced hearing. Daesung forgets how dulled human senses are.

Another man chimes in, this one older and more weathered. He addresses Daesung in a gravelly voice but seems friendly enough. "We haven't had wolves in these parts for a long time. This district's last pack up and left ages ago, and the place has been empty since. You know, the house you were settled? Vacant for years until you came along."

"What happened to them?"

"Honestly don't know." The man replies gruffly. He takes a seat on Daesung's free side and makes himself comfortable."All I'm say is the people are mighty curious about you folk, that's all."

Just curious. That is harmless enough, Daesung thinks, examining the skewered meat in his hand. Though he does not really want to eat it, he supposes he will if he must. For... for the greater good.

With that thought, Daesung tries cooked meat for the very first time.

"So? How is it?"

"I kind of like it," Seungri comments from off to one side. He sounds like he means it.

"Why am I not surprised?" Youngbae says, and Seungri gives no indication that he even heard him, for once not rising to the bait.

As for Daesung, with some trouble and a tight smile, he chokes down his portion. It is tough and dry and not at all like the juicy, tender flesh he has lived his entire life on. Once again Daesung wonders, how can humans eat this?

"And you?" the man says, still awaiting an answer from Daesung.

Daesung responds by curling his fingers into a fist and raising his thumb, a gesture he has seen humans do on occasion as a sign of approval or agreement. He hopes he is doing it right.

It seems so. The man grins and nods and goes back to tending the flames, seeming pleased with himself and his work. Beside Daesung his packmates are largely silent, though their sour expressions tell all.

This-- their transition-- might be harder than he thought.

 

\--

  
  
 

Some would say that Seunghyun just does not learn. Seunghyun would say that he is just _stubborn_.

"We usually save those parts for the dogs," he hears yet again, and his heart sinks. He keeps trying, but receiving the same discouraging answer every time is beginning to wear him down.

"Well, save some of them for us from now on," he says. "They're better eating than you think."

The butcher gives him a contemplative look. After a few moments he says, "You just want 'em straight outta the animal, or what?"

"Yes," Seunghyun says. "Just-- actually, maybe I can come in and do it myself?"

The man's eyes bug out. "Absolutely not. You don't work here, you don't touch anything that anyone is going to eat," he says quickly. "Or anything that's gonna touch anything that anyone's going to eat," he says, glancing at a rack of blades nearby, freshly sharpened and ready to be put to use on the next animal carcass that comes through the door.

Seunghyun wants to point out that he wouldn't need the man's knives, not when he has these claws. What does this human think Seunghyun is?

"So... if I were to work here, then..." Seunghyun says, not missing a beat.

The man heaves a put-upon sigh, wipes his hands on his apron, and looks Seunghyun firmly in the eye. "Alright, wolf. Can you work normal hours? Be here five days a week? Arrive just before dawn and work until early evening?"

"Yes," Seunghyun answers, holding his breath.

"I feel for you," the man says, watching him with something like sympathy in his dark eyes. "It ain't easy being different, especially not around here. So I tell you what. I'll give you a job, but you've gotta prove that you're reliable and trustworthy."

Seunghyun does not speak, nor does he move. He feels like his heart may have even skipped a beat or two, or was that a flutter of hope? "I will be," he promises.

"What's your name, anyway?"

"Seunghyun."

"Well, that's different." The man tries his name out on his tongue again. He wipes his hands on his apron and says, "Maybe I shouldn't say this, but I think you'll be pretty good at this, Seunghyun. You've had plenty of practice at it, haven't you?"

"Yes," Seunghyun says. "In a sense." He refrains from saying anything further, loathe to open his big mouth and possibly ruin his good fortune by oversharing.

The butcher squints at him. "You're suddenly quiet. Cat got your tongue?"

"No," Seunghyun forces out. He has _no idea_ what that is supposed to mean-- humans say the most unusual things. His tongue is just fine and perfectly functional, and a cat has nothing to do with it. "I just... want to say thank you. My pack and I, we need this."

The man waves him off. "Just be here bright and early, and be ready to learn. There's work for you here."

It's true that the pack needs Seunghyun to be successful at this. They need him to pull his own weight as every one of them is currently doing. He refuses to be left behind as the rest of them forge on ahead with their new lives.

 _He_ needs this.

  
  
 

\--

  
  
 

Late one evening Daesung stumbles through the door, more worn out than he ever thought possible working at a bakery, of all places. He enjoys his work there, but every day brings new lessons, new stresses he must adapt to quickly. It is life as he has never known it.

Sniffing the air, he senses that he is not alone. The familiar smells of Youngbae and Seungri hang in the air near the front door where they passed through not long ago. Their scents are well known to him, but tinged with something darker these days, something unpleasant. Gunpowder.

Daesung rounds a corner and shuffles into the kitchen-- the kitchen they don't really use-- and stops dead.

There is a rifle on the table.

The barrel is aimed in his direction and he skitters backward until it is out of sight, his feet moving of their own accord and putting the corner wall between him and the weapon he fears so profoundly that he cannot even go near it.

"Youngbae?" Daesung calls out, his tremulous voice upsetting the silence permeating the house like a stone dropped into still waters. "Seungri?"

He receives no answer. Daesung stands there, unsure what to do next, how to proceed. There is an inanimate object between him and his dinner, and he feels helpless to do anything about it. What if it goes off accidentally? What if it has a faulty trigger and fires as he tries to move it? What then?

Just then Youngbae appears.

"Daesung?"

" _Youngbae_ ," Daesung hisses. "What is _that_ doing here?" he says, gesturing to the long gun left so carelessly across the surface of their table-- pointed right at the door, no less.

"Oh, shit," Youngbae hurries to say. "Sorry, Daesung. I came in and set it down and just... forgot about it. You get used to it after handling it for awhile," he says apologetically.

"But why is it here?" Daesung frowns deeply. "Aren't you supposed to leave your rifle back at camp?"

"Normally, yes," Youngbae admits. "But I brought it home for cleaning. We got in late, didn't have time back at camp. They gave me special permission..."

Daesung bites his lip and tries to work up the courage to say what he feels he needs to say.

"It wasn't loaded," Youngbae adds.

"I don't want it here," Daesung says stiffly, eyes focusing on something across the room, anything as long as he does not have to look Youngbae in the eye as he says it. "I don't want it here in our home," he clarifies.

"...I understand," Youngbae says a moment later. And, meeting the other wolf's solemn eyes with his own, Daesung believes him.

Because Youngbae does understand. He was there that day like all the others. He did not experience the terror in the same way Daesung had, did not stare down the barrel of a loaded gun with the certainty that he was a blink away from his own demise... but he had experienced fear all the same, if a different sort of fear.

"I'll... take it into my room for now," Youngbae offers, and it is not exactly what Daesung had asked of him, but it is progress. "It will be gone tomorrow. Sorry again."

"It's okay," Daesung returns, feeling pathetic. The gun alone, without a person acting upon it, will not hurt him. It cannot fire itself any more than a knife can leap up off the ground and hurl itself at him. It is simply a tool. This Daesung knows... and still he fears it greatly.

"Please don't bring it back here. Or," Daesung adds, hating himself a little for it, but he cannot stand to make such demands of his older packmate, "Or if you do have it here, I don't want to know about it."

Youngbae plants a firm hand onto his shoulder and squeezes. His reassuring smile does little to calm Daesung's nerves-- not when Youngbae, usually conducting himself so carefully, acted so thoughtlessly just now.

"You got it," Youngbae says, and Daesung returns his smile with a weaker one of his own.

 

\--

 

Unexpectedly, Daesung finds that he does not mind spending time around humans. Sometimes he even enjoys their company. They seem to warm up to Daesung more easily than the others. His quiet demeanor and gentle nature earn him a place of acceptance among the people that the rest of his pack struggle to attain.

However, it does not simply happen overnight.

A young lady sitting a few places down from them gawks openly at them. Daesung tries to meet her eyes a few times, but her blatant distrust soon proves to be too much. He ducks his head and resigns himself to it for another evening. Better luck next time, maybe.

Another young man about Daesung's own age sidles up to him.

"What's wrong?"

"Is it okay for us to be here? Like this?"

"Sure, why not? I mean, as long as you don't go all-- you know." He raises his hands and makes these ridiculous claw motions and Daesung can't help the smile that pulls at his lips at the sight.

The young lady speaks up then. "What are you doing? Why are you talking to him? He's a wolf." She eyes Daesung, and his tail in particular, with an uneasy expression. It rests casually beside him on his log seat, but just to be safe Daesung moves it behind him, out of sight.

He sees the others do the same-- Seungri the first to follow, ending with Jiyong. Even Seunghyun caves and sweeps his tail behind him grudgingly. It feels very strange indeed to have his packmates follow his lead.

The humans are warming up to Daesung, but most of them are still frightened of the others. They are especially anxious around Seunghyun. Seunghyun, his mate, who scowls at them through the flames the entire time. And even when he is not openly scowling, his mouth set instead in a firm line, his disdain for their human company is no less clear, his large, expressive eyes like windows to the truth of what he feels.

"Yeah, he's a wolf. And that means-- what, exactly?"

"I don't feel safe around him," she declares, and Daesung's heart sinks like the setting sun, slowly but surely, and irreversibly.

The man shakes his head at her. "This guy? He's harmless," he says with a broad grin, clapping Daesung on the back. "Aren't you? You seem nice enough. Bet you wouldn't hurt a fly, right?"

Seunghyun leaps to his feet in an instant, teeth bared, a vicious growl rising in his throat and cutting through the conversation around them until all eyes are fixed on him. As Seunghyun advances on them the man flings himself away from Daesung, nearly tumbling off the log as he lifts his hands in the air a placating gesture.

"What did I do?" he asks, eyes wide. Not so much afraid as utterly bewildered.

"Seunghyun, don't," Daesung pleads.

"Watch what you say," Seunghyun warns the man, looking and sounding _wild_. "Daesung could tear you to pieces in a heartbeat. You would be dead before you could open your mouth to scream."

The man stares up at Seunghyun in a mix of awe and terror. "I didn't mean anything by it. I just meant that she," he gestures to the woman across from them, "shouldn't be afraid of him. Of... of any of you." He seems to rethink that last bit, but forces it out anyway.

"But you _should_ be afraid, all of you," Seunghyun insists. And Daesung understands the motivation behind it; unable to let go of a lifetime of instilling fear in humans, forced into too many confrontations with what they have always considered their natural enemy. It is a fear that has kept them alive countless times throughout the years-- has kept them safely away from humans and humans safely away from them.

"Don't listen to him," Daesung tries. "Really, he's just--"

"--because you have every reason to be afraid," Seunghyun forges ahead, stamping out Daesung's softer voice with his own deeper one and effectively commanding everyone's attention. "After all, do you realize what we could do to you?"

" _Look at that. I told you_ ," Daesung hears.

"Whose idea was it to bring wolves to here?"

"They're like _animals_."

"All the stories were true. This really isn't the place for them."

The situation is quickly spiraling out of hand, but Daesung is not ready to let go of it. Not yet.

"No! No, actually--" He jumps to his feet swiftly so everyone sees it. He has to pull their focus away from Seunghyun. Seunghyun thrives on having a captive audience when he is angry. Daesung makes a show of laying a hand on the arm of the man beside him, slowly, cautiously, taking care to keep his claws securely tucked away as he does it.

"This man is right," he states, raising his voice to be heard. "I don't want to hurt anyone, and I won't. We won't. We're not... that's not what we are."

There are eyes on him, but there are still many more eyes on Seunghyun, the people fearing that the full force of his eruption is still forthcoming.

But Daesung can sense him retreating. His mate stops that terrible growling, at least.

He bows his head politely. "Maybe you won't believe me right away. And... that's okay. Give us time. We'll show you. I'm sorry about him," he says, shooting his mate a stern look. "Please allow us to stay."

Seunghyun glares right back him; it quickly becomes a battle of wills between them, Daesung meeting and holding the other's gaze with a boldness he did not know he possessed. After a few suspenseful moments, Seunghyun seems to crumple in on himself suddenly and returns to his seat, his face screwing up in something like self-contempt.

Well. That was easier than Daesung expected. He might feel a bit of guilt over it if he didn't feel so damn accomplished. He seeks out the others and finds Seungri staring at him with a kind of wonder; and beside him, Jiyong and Youngbae exchanging knowing looks.

The young woman still watches him with a staunch expression, always guarded, and Daesung cannot have that. He gives her his brightest smile-- though close-lipped, so as not to show her his teeth. And when that does not work, running low on ideas, Daesung raises his tail and gives it a little wag. Just a tiny one, the gesture meant only for her eyes.

His face burns in embarrassment as he does it-- he hates to use his tail like this-- but to his relief it seems to do the trick. She cracks a smile at last. A small one, but a smile nonetheless.

It's a start.

 _Harmless_ , the man had said of him. So it was not meant as an insult, after all. Quite the contrary, it had been a well-intentioned effort to make him, a wolf, seem less threatening. How strange. How peculiar. Worse, the man had gone out of his way to help Daesung fit in, encouraging the others to accept him... and then his furious mate had swiftly stood and rebuked him for it.

Of one thing, at least, Daesung is certain: they have more than a few things to learn, and many misunderstandings ahead of them.

  
  
 

\--

  
  
 

On the walk home that night Seunghyun seizes Daesung by the scruff of the neck, his fingers digging almost painfully into the firm muscle where his neck meets the base of his skull. His blunt nails-- claws sheathed, thankfully-- bite into his skin just enough to smart. It's a move Seunghyun has not used on him in a long time. He has not needed to.

However, just because it has been a while does not mean that Daesung has forgotten how he is expected to react.

" _Ah_ ," he gasps, dropping his head low in a sign of submission. But it is not enough for Seunghyun; the other wolf presses Daesung down further, until Daesung is nearly bent in half, forced to bend at the waist, with nowhere to look but straight down at the dirt under his feet.

Seunghyun never does  anything in halves. Daesung is not sure he knows how to.

He does not fight Seunghyun's grip on him, even as it borders on painful. Why would he? He half-expected this. After all, when was the last time he stood up to the other wolf like he did back there? His mate must take back his wounded pride somehow.

Daesung didn't _mean_ to humiliate him, it's just... Someone had needed to rein him in before blood was shed.

"Daesung is right, you know," he hears from somewhere above him. Jiyong. "He did what needed to be done. You were wrong to act up like that back there."

" _Harmless_. That's what they called him," Seunghyun growls, sounding terribly offended, as if the word had been directed at _him_. "What do they think we are, pets? Dogs?"

"Quit throwing a tantrum. It wasn't that bad."

"They can't domesticate us, if that's their goal." The hand on Daesung's neck squeezes and he makes a pained face at the ground, though no one can see it. "Shit, this place is so backwards. I hate it."

"None of us fucking like it," Jiyong snaps, "But this is what we've been given. Just go along with it for now, okay?"

It is awkward to wait, locked in this position, while they  argue above him, their voices volleying back and forth over his back. Seunghyun shoves him forward and down again; this time he nearly loses his balance.

"Seunghyun, stop," Youngbae says softly.

"We're not animals they can just tame," he rumbles, voice shot through with fury and indignation. We're wolves. We're fucking _lethal_. The people here would be wise not to forget that."

Not a word of disagreement arises from even one of them at that.

"We don't have to live by their rules," Seunghyun grumbles lowly.

 _We kind of do_ , Daesung thinks, _as long as we're here_. He keeps his mouth solidly shut and locks the thought away.

"Just let it go, Seunghyun," Jiyong cautions him. Then, nodding to Daesung, obediently still and silent under his hand, "Let him go."

Seunghyun's grasp on him tightens viciously for a fraction of a second-- hard enough that Daesung cannot help the way he winces-- before he frees Daesung, the hand on his neck vanishing.

Beside him Seunghyun scoffs, "Humans."

Daesung can still feel it though, the memory of his mate's strength and dominance stamped into his skin. In the cool night air, his skin feels suddenly cold in the absence of Seunghyun's heat, his fingers and palm hot to the touch. He knows he must have little red crescents cut into his skin-- more tiny marks to join the rest, the smooth surfaces of his scars like freckles dotted up and down the back of his neck.

From Seunghyun, with love, he thinks wryly.

Seungri watches him closely, a question in his doleful eyes, his concern plain to see. He seems a little spooked and immediately Daesung feels for him. Scruffing is a behavior usually reserved for Seungri nowadays, as their resident alpha-turned-omega and the most prone to acting out; the others are quick to correct him when it is called for. To witness Daesung on the wrong end of a good scruffing must be strange for Seungri, indeed.

He smiles at Seungri, hoping to reassure him. _It's okay_ , he mouths, and the other wolf's eyes dart away.

It isn't really okay though, not all of it. _Harmless_ , the man had said. It doesn't sit well with Daesung. Other wolves have called him that all his life, and coming from them the word has never been anything but an insult. Harmless.

Daesung sets his jaw and squares his shoulders, lifting his chin and looking ahead the rest of the walk home. If harmless is what the humans need him to be, at least outwardly, so be it.

When they arrive back at the house, Seunghyun holds him at the door while the others go in. They swing the door shut on them with a knowing look-- from Youngbae, one of warning to Seunghyun, one of support to Daesung-- before the door swings shut with a heavy sound.

"Don't let them get to you," Seunghyun tells him, leaning in close.

"Who?"

"Those humans." His mate spits the word out like it's _vile_. "Forget what they said; you are every bit as dangerous as the rest of us. You do know that, don't you?"

"Oh," Daesung says. "It didn't bother me." He lets his fangs out just a little and grins. "And thanks, I know I'm a force to be reckoned with."

Seunghyun squints at him. "You don't believe me."

"I do, it's just..." Daesung shrugs. "Thank you for defending me back there. But... you really shouldn't have."

Seunghyun lets his head thump against Daesung's strong chest. "I don't understand these people. This place."

"I know it's confusing," Daesung agrees, sympathy for his mate washing through him. He hates to see Seunghyun so disheartened. It is so unlike him to be discouraged. "But we should probably try to avoid situations like that from now on," he continues quietly. "We're finally here. We made it. Now we make it work."

Seunghyun draws back and gives him a sour look, so Daesung presses on. "Seunghyun, we're not _hungry_ here." He takes the other's hand and lays it against his side, pushes his palm to his own ribs which can no longer be felt without some searching. "We're healthy again. We're alive and without fear of death. Isn't that all we wanted?"

At that Seunghyun finally caves. "Okay," he says, thumb stroking over Daesung's side. It is true; they have all filled out well since settling in here, a ready supply of good meat reviving them and replenishing their starved bodies more quickly than any of them expected. Daesung has packed on muscle again and suffers no more from the ache of hunger in the pit of his stomach, a constant pain that he had trained himself to ignore.

Seunghyun's other hand rises and touches the back of his neck almost reverently, gentle fingers stroking over the wounds he had inflicted there as carefully as if he were brushing a butterfly's powdery wings.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No," Daesung replies, and yields to his mate as Seunghyun dips his head and catches Daesung's lips between his own. Daesung's lips curl upward into a mischievous grin. "Well, not any more than usual."

The other grins back at him wickedly, his sharp teeth glinting in the moonlight. He pushes Daesung up against the door then, Daesung's hair snagging in the rough wood as he tips his head back under the sudden, welcome assault of Seunghyun's teeth and tongue, the other wolf nipping and biting at him in his usual reckless fashion.

They have barely begun, and already Daesung's sensitive lips feel bruised.

He suspects that is Seunghyun's intent, after the events of this evening. Seunghyun would want Daesung to feel him for _days_ , his effect on him lasting, his influence impressed into the other wolf in every possible way. Seunghyun's rough play tonight sends a clear message to Daesung, one he could never misinterpret; it is a re-establishment of his dominance, a physical reminder of the sway he holds over him.

Before long they are grinding against each other, the door taking both their weight as Seunghyun rolls his hips against Daesung's with crystal clear intent. With every thrust Daesung rises to meet him, the hard point of Seunghyun's clothed cock spears against his own in just the right place, with perfect pressure-- Seunghyun _knows_ what he likes by now, is well-practiced at setting him ablaze with a single touch-- and Daesung's mouth falls open at the spike of pleasure that stabs through him, a guttural moan slipping out of him unchecked.

Soon his hands roam south and grab onto Daesung's ass, curling in and pulling his hips closer so that they are flush against each other, and repeats the motion, driving their cocks together with real force. This time Daesung cries out loudly, a high, keening sound, utterly unabashed.

One house over, their neighbor storms out his front door and lobs something at them, maybe a shoe, who knows, shouting at them to take it inside. They jerk apart just in time to avoid the thing thrown at them and turn to the neighbor with wide eyes.

"It's late as shit and we're trying to sleep! No one wants to hear you!"

Seunghyun makes an irritable sound as Daesung flings open the door to their home and tugs him inside. Together they stumble to their shared room, attached at the lips, stopping a few times along the way to continue making out heavily against the wall.

"Are you ashamed of me?" Seunghyun breathes into his ear suddenly, his lips wet against his skin as he speaks, his breath scorching hot.

"What?" Daesung says, squirming as Seunghyun's mouth works steadily over his ear, hands tugging at the front of his pants. His knuckles bump against Daesung's cock where it strains against the fabric, and Daesung's hips jump every time, seeking more of the contact. He can't-- why is he asking him this right _now?_

"No. I'm not _ashamed_ , why would you even--"

"'I'm sorry about him', you said." Seunghyun falls very still and levels Daesung with a sharp look, his eyes black and brimming with something pent-up and very dark. "You apologized for me. To a _human_. Why?"

Daesung groans helplessly. "I had to. I had to say that, to calm them down. To convince them. I'm sorry." Daesung cannot believe... He thought they had moved past this. Seunghyun carries things with him _forever_.

Seunghyun pulls back to frown at him-- or is that a pout? hard to tell in this such low light-- and Daesung resists the urge to roll his eyes. In his own way Seunghyun can be surprisingly... delicate. If you know where to strike. But Daesung would never hit him where he is weak.

He wraps arms around Seunghyun's neck and promises, "I'm not ashamed of you. _Never_ think that. Just... try not to pick fights from now on?"

At that Seunghyun seems satisfied enough, pulling Daesung the rest of the way to their room without another word. But the way he shoves him to the bed, turning him over onto his stomach and mounting him hurriedly-- pushing into him with minimal preparation and little care, while Daesung grits his teeth and wills his body to open around his mate's girth-- _fuck_ , it _hurts_ \-- tells Daesung otherwise.

Once he's in they fuck hard and fast. It is nothing out of the ordinary for them, but Daesung cannot help feeling like he's being punished. Seunghyun slams into him again and again, and it becomes clear to Daesung that he is not even trying to make it good for him, is using Daesung's body to chase his own pleasure without thought for anyone else's.

He fists his hands in the sheets and frowns deeply, understanding that something went wrong at some point, but not sure what. Was it him? What did he do?

For a moment Seunghyun was right there with him... but somewhere along the way Daesung lost him.

He whimpers softly-- small, pained sounds-- hoping to reach in past Seunghyun's rough exterior, beyond his inner turmoil, to the part of him that _cares_. Instead, at his voice Seunghyun's rhythm picks up, his hips smacking against Daesung's ass repeatedly like a fucking battering ram, his cock spearing into his body and splitting him open like a sword.

Daesung face twists up in pain. He starts to turn to say something-- something like _shit, Seunghyun, slow down, please_ \-- when teeth suddenly sink into his shoulder and he freezes, caught in place. His own cock hangs beneath him only half-hard, losing interest fast. In their current position he can't even touch himself; Seunghyun might topple him over if he tried.

It happens so rarely, but he really hates when Seunghyun gets like this.

Daesung hangs his head and braces himself against the onslaught behind him, over him, inside him, scowling down at the bedsheets and waiting for it to be over, hoping his mate finishes sooner than later.

Fuck it. He tried.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: [Feed The Machine](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDdER1S3pJRXUzWDg) (All)


	3. Chapter 3

"You could be a low content wolf," someone suggests one night.

Daesung glances up from the piece of meat he is picking at. They have still cooked it for him, insisting that they simply cannot stomach the sight of him swallowing it down raw, but they have, at least, kept it extra rare at his request.

"What does that mean? 'Low content wolf'?"

"It means your ratio of wolf blood to human blood is small." At Daesung's blank stare, the old man elaborates. "You might be more human than you are wolf. I bet you are."

Daesung resumes pecking at his meal, nibbling at the inside where there is still blood to be found. "You think so?"

"It wouldn't surprise me. You get along with us better than anyone else in your pack. You're so easy to be around. They're... well, not. Haven't you wondered about that?"

He has, but...

"What about your parents?" someone else asks, joining in. "Do you remember them at all?"

"Not really," he replies. Daesung barely even remembers his parents being around to care for him, let alone what they were like, if they seemed more human or wolf. Did they even have tails? He has always thought that they did, but now that he is questioning it, really reaching into the vaults of his memory for answers, he isn't so sure.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it, kid," says an elderly man who appears at his back with a stealth that surprises him. "We like having you. That's all that matters. No point to all this soul searching. You've got your whole life ahead of you." He aims a big grin his way, showing off more than a few missing teeth, and claps a friendly hand over the back of Daesung's neck.

At the hand on his neck, Daesung drops his skewer and hits the ground on all fours.

"Whoa! Hey there, you okay?"

Daesung stares fixedly at the ground before him, eyes locked on the sparse grass and the pebbles and clods of dirt... He senses a presence at his side, no doubt someone trying to get his attention, but he is loathe to face them. His face burns with embarrassment.

 _They don't know what they're doing_ , he tells himself. _They didn't mean anything by it._

Just like he did not mean to drop to his fucking _knees_ in submission at a _human's_ touch. It is a small mercy that Seunghyun was not around to see him disgrace himself like that.

Daesung climbs back to his feet, laughing it off somewhat awkwardly. The old man returns his nervous smile with one of his own and offers him a hand up. With no small measure of guilt, Daesung ignores it and stands under his own power.

"What was that? You okay?" the man asks, seeming genuinely stressed. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No, no, you're fine, it’s okay," Daesung assures him. "I promise, you did not hurt me."

"Oh, well," the man says. "I was just thinking, those battle scars on your neck... Maybe they're still a little painful."

It takes Daesung a moment to catch his meaning. Battle scars? When he does, he bursts into laughter, and it is genuine this time.

The man grins broadly at him, a glint in his eye. "You're a real fighter, aren't ya?"

"Yeah, battle scars," Daesung repeats, smiling wildly, tremendously amused. If only they knew, these poor creatures.

"I don't know," says a woman a little ways away. "You don't seem much like the scrappy type."

" _Hey_ ," Daesung says in mock offense.

"Your boyfriend is probably more the type."

"Boyfriend?"

"You know, the tall one? Real fierce? Intense look about him."

"How could we ever forget him? The scene he made that day," another woman chimes in.

"Oh," Daesung says, understanding dawning on him. He takes his seat and picks his discarded skewer of meat up off the ground, brushing and picking the dirt off of it distractedly.

"Seemed kind of wild to me. How do you stand it?"

"I actually like that about him," Daesung says honestly. "Seunghyun can be a handful, but..."

Why is he telling them this? He owes them no explanation.

"But?"

"He can be tough, but he looks out for me," Daesung finishes quietly.

"I'm sure there's more to it than just that. Go on, please," she coaxes, eyes alight.

"...I would rather not," Daesung says with great reluctance. "You're right, there is more to it, but I'm not-- I'm not ready to talk about it. I'm sorry."

"Well, in any case, I'm happy for you." She smiles brilliantly at him; he smiles back, a little less brightly but no less grateful to have her approval.

On his way home later that evening Daesung passes what he assumes to be one of their neighboring packs. Their strong, combined scents hit him all at once and he goes on high alert, watching them like a hawk as their steady footsteps bring them nearer and nearer.

He hates to be alone like this, just him against the, what, eight of them? Been there, done that. Not the best of memories.

One of the wolves seems to be heading straight for him. Daesung prepares to flee, his pulse quickening and his every muscle tensing to propel himself away on a moment's notice. Over there-- he could dart between those buildings, they're not far. Just beyond them he knows there is a winding back road that will take him home, though it will take him longer.

"Hey," the wolf says to him, coming within earshot. "What are you doing out here all alone?"

"Heading home," Daesung answers stiffly.

"Aw, no. Not too many wolves around here, you know what I mean? Want to come back with us?" He leans in closer, not-so-subtly tasting the air around Daesung, testing his scent. "Come back with me?"

"Leave him alone," another wolf says, grabbing him by the shoulder and dragging him back. "Isn't it obvious? He's taken."

Daesung holds his breath.

The wolf evaluates him for a moment, gaze dropping below his face and focusing on his neck. He steps away.

"Yeah, I guess so. That's some mate you got there. Possessive bastard, ain't he? Marking you up like that."

Daesung glares at the other wolf. He can say what he wants, but all that matters to Daesung is that he leaves-- him and the rest of his pack. Rival packs are too risky to confront alone. Too dangerous.

Thankfully, they do just that, turning to go without even a cursory glance back at him, their tails drooping behind them, relaxed and at ease in a way Daesung wishes he could be at the moment.

As he resumes his walk home, he reflects on the evening's events. Wolves know right away that the marks mean he is spoken for. Humans do not have a clue. _Battle scars._ He grins again at that.

In a way, Daesung is relieved, even comforted, by the wolves' awareness. It is familiar to him, their ability to read Seunghyun's language of tooth and claw marks on skin, of scars written into his flesh. It is the language of wild things, and every wolf should know it. At least among wolves, his marks are as clear and natural a deterrent as Daesung will ever need.

Even when he is not present, Seunghyun is looking out for him.

 

\--

 

They are not accustomed to small children-- or any children at all, for that matter. They are especially fascinated by the really tiny ones, the helpless babes.

Even here, among countless humans who they interact with daily, their opportunities are limited. Most of the townsfolk refuse to let a wolf close enough to their children for a good look, much less an infant who must be cradled gently in one's arms.

As usual, Daesung seems to be the exception.

His human companions seem to sense in him the same inherently gentle spirit that Seunghyun has grown so fond of over the years. At one of their weekly gatherings around the fire, one of the younger ladies brings with her a child, a newborn thing, swaddled in blankets as soft as down feathers.

Daesung's eyes light up at the sight of the babe, at the soft burbling sounds it makes in its mother's arms. Everything about the child screams weak and defenseless, susceptible to anything and everything in this cruel world. It even _sounds_ vulnerable, and it ignites conflicting emotions in Seunghyun.

Before either of them realizes it, the young mother has approached them and gently, so gently, tucked the babe into Daesung's strong arms. An enormous display of trust if Seunghyun has ever seen one.

Daesung cranes his neck to peer down at the bundle in his arms, his lips lifting in the purest, most delighted grin Seunghyun has seen him don since they entered the city.

He seems unaware of the way his tail wags gently, sweeping across the dirt behind him as he marvels at the tiny thing in his arms, so tender, so fragile, so helpless.

Unless it was their own, most wolves would want to destroy something like this. Daesung is not most wolves.

Seunghyun sees his mate holding a child and he feels off-kilter, like the world has inexplicably tipped sideways all around him. The sight before him reminds him all over again about his impossible wish to one day have a family with the other wolf. Pups of their own, if such a thing were possible. They would be good fathers to their children, Seunghyun has no doubt.

But this is not their child, and Seunghyun feels no such instinct to protect or nurture it, no matter how Daesung glows with the babe in his arms. His radiance is blinding; Seunghyun can only imagine how he would look with a child of his own. The thought stuns him with its clarity, strikes him with a swift and desperate desire.

Seunghyun wants to take him home and try again, just to be sure. And again after that for good measure.

Too soon Daesung must give the child up as its mood suddenly plummets. Its face scrunches up in distress and it begins making a dreadful wailing sound. Its pitiful cries soon rise in volume and Seunghyun grits his teeth in actual pain. He did not realize the _awful_ sounds a baby could emit. He chances a look at Daesung and his mate appears similarly pained-- the difference between him and Seunghyun being that he seems only a second away from leaping to his feet to help the wretched creature, not hurt him.

The babe bawls and blubbers until the young mother turns and carries it away, opening the top of her dress to feed the child.

Such a fussy creature, Seunghyun decides. He only wants to smother it, while Daesung wishes to soothe it. Such are their differences, he supposes.

 

\--

 

Inevitably, Seunghyun loses his job at the butcher.

He was not _stealing_. He was making good use of scraps, unwanted pieces of meat that the butcher had deemed no better than trash. _Save those parts for the dogs_ , he had been instructed. He could only stand by and let that go on for so long. A few cow's organs smuggled back to the pack, and he was out a job only days later when it came to light.

Seunghyun does not understand why the people here are so determined to control what he and his pack consume. It is maddening.

From there, he drifts from one job to the next. He sees a carpenter building furniture and is intrigued by the creations. They have never possessed much furniture. His interest is piqued.

To his chagrin, they run him off, insisting that a wolf could never hope to work in such a fine trade.

Eventually Seunghyun ends up working in a field, tilling the earth and planting seeds and harvesting the vegetables when they are ripe enough to pluck from the vines... vegetables that, as strict carnivores, he and his pack cannot even eat. The work is tedious, filled with menial tasks that any unskilled laborer could complete, and the pay is low. There is nothing redeeming about it for Seunghyun, and he feels locked into it like he has never felt locked into anything before.

He does it because he must. He drags himself from the bed in the morning-- hardest of all is dragging himself from Daesung-- and trudges out of the house and to the fields because, in addition to his own, there are four very important mouths to feed... and one in particular that is most important of all.

That mouth, and the man it belongs to, is Seunghyun's only true comfort. The one thing it pains him to leave as the day begins, and the one thing he looks forward to seeing again at day's end. Some days it seems like the only quality time he and Daesung spend together is when they are joined in bed, rutting against each other in their usual way, Daesung reaching for him with a hunger that he can't always return, too drained and unhappy to to give his mate his all. Some nights they are too exhausted to do anything more than acknowledge each other before passing out.

It is entirely out of the ordinary. Then the sun rises and they must do it all again. What has their life become?

Seunghyun does it for Daesung, but even so, he hates it. He has never before felt so lacking in worth.

 

\--

 

From time to time Daesung and Seungri go out and explore their surroundings, wandering the city streets shoulder to shoulder. It is usually Seungri who must coax Daesung out of the house, wheedling and pestering him until Daesung gives in and gets up, trailing behind an impatient Seungri as he bounds out the door, driven by an innate need to roam. Daesung dislikes wandering aimlessly, prefers a destination and a stronger sense of purpose. But when Seungri turns those eyes on him he soon takes pity on the younger wolf and gives him what he wants: his familiar company. It does help that together they make a charming pair; the city's inhabitants take to them well.

 _Most_ of the city's inhabitants. Daesung suspects they may always have at least a few enemies.

They are on their way back after visiting most of the quaint businesses in their immediate area, Seungri taking every opportunity to locate the store owners and introduce himself and Daesung as their new resident wolf pack, just in case they did not already know. Daesung smiles politely every time, but by the end he is exhausted. His feet ache and his thoughts begin to wander away from him. Seungri's energy is impossible to match, his intensely forward approach too much for Daesung after a few hours of it. He cannot wait to be home.

They are still a good distance away when a dry bone skitters across their path. It comes to rest on the street before them, yards from where they stand staring at it in confusion.

"Well, aren't you gonna get it? I thought dogs loved bones."

A few young men, roughly their age by the looks of them, are gathered on the street corner, watching him and Seungri closely. Daesung recognizes the challenge in their eyes, their daring stance. He knows their type.

Arrogant. Ignorant. Not worth their time or their anger.

"Here," another one says, throwing another bone at them. "Fetch!"

With a snarl Seungri tears after them. Daesung tries to catch him by the sleeve, the back of his jacket-- _something_ \-- but the other wolf is out of his reach before he can stop him.

Daesung stands there unable to budge, trapped under the conflicting feelings warring within him. The wolf in him is demanding that he join his packmate in the pursuit. Team up with Seungri and teach their attackers a firm lesson. It shrieks in outrage, compelling him to act.

His human blood reasons with him to stand down, appealing to him with a calm authority. Chasing after those boys won't make their situation any better. It might not even make him feel better in the end, only foolish for taking the bait.

Daesung doesn't know which voice to listen to.

When Seungri returns minutes later, a little winded but otherwise okay, Daesung has not moved an inch. Seungri huffs at him.

"You didn't come with me," he says, seeming petulant.

Daesung glowers at him. "You should have just left them alone. Ignored them."

Seungri looks at him like he has just sprouted an extra head. " _Hello_ , Daesung, did you hear what they said to us?"

"Yes. We've heard worse. Don't let them get to you," Daesung chides. "They're just looking for a reaction."

"Yeah? Then I'll give it to them. Teach them a lesson they won't soon forget."

"Now you sound like Seunghyun. Or Jiyong."

"Good," Seungri declares. He straightens up, seeming proud of himself. "They would have done the same thing. Wish they'd been here. Those punks are gonna get it."

"That's what they _want_. Don't give them that reaction, Seungri," Daesung says, his mind made up. He implores his younger packmate, hoping he will see. "It will only make things worse."

Seungri only scowls at him, unconvinced. Daesung waits; he is tired, physically and mentally, but he is nothing if not patient.

"You really should stand up for yourself more."

That's it-- what patience remains crumbles into dust-- Daesung's hand darts up and grabs the shell of Seungri's ear, pinching it sharply between his fingers.

"Ow! Ow, okay!"

"Watch yourself, Seungri."

When he lets go, Seungri straightens up with a hand cupped over his hurt ear, a little red in the face.

"What was that for?"

After what occurred between them back then, Daesung does what he can to remind Seungri of his place in the pack hierarchy, reasserting his dominance when he needs to... although lovingly. If any of them were to forget his place, it could jeopardize the workings of the entire pack. They have enough to contend with already; the last thing they need right now is the added stress of inner-pack conflict.

Daesung knows it is necessary. That does not mean he has to like it, has never been one to throw his own weight around.

Seungri rubs at his ear and pointedly refuses to look at him, a little angry, a little embarrassed.

Daesung can't help it. "Sorry, I had to," he says softly, and touches the hand cupped over Seungri's ear, hoping to soothe the hurt he caused. "Was that too hard?"

"No. It's fine," Seungri says with a kind of grudging acceptance. "I still forget sometimes."

An uncomfortable silence passes between them, until Seungri speaks up, "Can I say something freely?"

"Yes. Go on," Daesung says, resigning himself to whatever Seungri is about to throw at him.

"Clearly you can stand up to me when I step out of line," Seungri says, "So why can't you stand up to them? Or-- why _don't_ you? What's different?"

Daesung doesn't know what to say. It _is_ different; Seungri is right about that. But how? How can he explain it?

Daesung knows what Seungri will do, how Seungri will react. Seungri he can handle. But these humans? Daesung does not know how they will act or what they are capable of. Though he feels closer to them with every passing day-- more _like_ them-- he still cannot predict their actions. Their inner workings are ever a mystery to him, and mystery breeds fear. It's a fear Daesung does not want to admit to, least of all to Seungri.

Wolves are simple creatures by nature. Humans are... complicated.

Seungri waits for an answer.

"I just think we should all be able to get along," Daesung finally answers, pushing the corners of his lips up into what he hopes is a convincing smile. "If we're going to live here, we should all be able to coexist, don't you think?"

"Of course," Seungri replies. "Why do you think I took the time to go out today, talking to everyone influential person I could?"

"Because you're such a talker," Daesung deadpans. "And because Jiyong was ready to kick you out of the house for the day."

Seungri laughs. "That's not true! The part about Jiyong, I mean. Anyway." He licks his lips and continues, "The way I see it, if they see us regularly-- if they know us by name and actually take some time to talk to us-- they won't fear or hate us. Does that make sense?"

"It does." Daesung gives Seungri an appraising look. "You know, I'm proud of you, Seungri."

The other wolf grins at the praise. "Oh! Thanks for coming with me, by the way. It went better with you there. The people here like you, if you haven't noticed."

"Do they?"

"Don't act like you haven't noticed," Seungri teases.

"Alright, you got me." Daesung smiles. Of course he has noticed. "But really, Seungri, don't go chasing after anyone else just because they said something mean to you and called you a bad name. Seriously, you are better than that."

Seungri seems to think about it. He shrugs. As they turn to go home, Seungri kicks the dry bone out of their path as they pass.

"Yeah, you're right... as usual."

Daesung grins and slings a companionable arm around Seungri's neck. It stays in place all the way home.

 

\--

 

Tonight Youngbae accompanies Daesung to the campfire. He brings with him an offering, a big slab of meat from a buck his hunting party had tracked and taken down just yesterday. Daesung thinks his gift is a great idea, and the humans seem to agree when the two of them show up with it in hand.

The fire is already blazing by the time they arrive; they take their seats and get comfortable, Youngbae wearing a nervous expression that does not suit him at all as some of their company flocks to them and strike up a conversation. Daesung watches him in both amusement and concern.

It is strange, of the two of them, to be the one more at ease here. Youngbae is normally so collected.

A sudden touch to his tail sends Daesung flying off his perch in fright. He whips around and comes face to face with... a very small child. The little girl stares up at him with wide eyes full of wonder, and Daesung is charmed.

"What was that all about?" Youngbae asks, looking back and forth between him and the little girl.

"She touched my tail," Daesung says, dazed. The child before him is such a tiny thing. Funny how the touch of her petite hands had sent him reeling, thinking something was out to get him, creeping up behind him and nibbling at the tip of his tail.

He really is a sorry wolf, isn't he?

The little girl smiles widely at Daesung and claps her hands together in apparent glee.

"Aw," Youngbae says. "I think she likes you. Go on, you should let her play with it."

"My _tail?_ " Daesung cries. "What if she pulls on it?"

Youngbae lifts an eyebrow at him. "Would it really hurt if she did? Look at her."

So Daesung concedes and allows the tiny human child to play with his tail for the remainder of the evening, until she loses interest. After a while she toddles over to Youngbae and plucks at his tail, too. Like Daesung, he jumps in his seat at the first touch of her tiny hands, her little fingers petting the fur and even cradling his tail like it is an animal in her arms. Youngbae makes a long face and Daesung grins at him, feeling giddy at the opportunity to tease the other wolf for a change.

When she waddles off, back to her mother presumably, he and Youngbae exchange a look bursting with good humor.

 _Adorable_ , Daesung mouths, and Youngbae nods coolly, ever a picture of careful self-control.

Between them and the humans they make short work of the venison Youngbae had provided. Daesung is just finishing the last of his portion, paying no mind to the red juices of a rare steak-- the rarest he could convince them to make for him-- running down his chin. In one swift movement Youngbae leans over and licks the bloody juices from his lips.

Daesung swallows his mouthful and meets him, aligning their mouths and opening his to kiss Youngbae deeply.

A hushed silence falls over the camp. Daesung pulls away, their lips creating a wet, sucking sound as they part, and finds the humans watching them with varied expressions.

"What?" he asks. "Did we do something?"

"It's just..." an older woman says, "That ain't your boyfriend. You know, the tall one?"

Daesung winces at that; Youngbae can be a bit sensitive about his height.

"It's okay. He's my pack," he explains.

"What is a wolf pack, anyway?" someone says. "I don't quite get it. You go around locking lips with all your, what, packmates?"

"My pack is my family," Daesung answers easily.

"You don't kiss family like that. And you _certainly_ don't make love to your family."

"Make love?" he and Youngbae ask as one.

"Fucking, kid. It means fucking," an older man adds brusquely. "Some folks like to call it _making love_."

Daesung mulls over that for a moment.

"So, not family. Come on, what's another word you would use to describe your pack?"

 _We're like brothers_ , Daesung wants to say, but they have already ruled out family. Brothers bonded not by blood but by choice and commitment. And in the case of Seunghyun... he is tied to Seunghyun in a way he could never even hope to explain.

"My... friends?" Daesung tries. He wants to take it back the moment it leaves his mouth. The word feels woefully inadequate. He looks to Youngbae for help; the other only shrugs at him, equally at a loss.

"You wolves are a promiscuous bunch, aren't you," Daesung hears, and it's like a thorn in his side, their relentless prodding beginning to grate at him. He wants to satisfy their curiosity as best he can, but he struggles to find the words to explain the concept of "pack" to people who will never experience it as he has.

Youngbae spares him the trouble.

"You'll never get it. A human like you can't understand the inner workings of a wolf pack," he says with a quiet aggravation. "You shouldn't be so quick to dismiss something you don't understand."

"Well, we don't want any of that 'pack' nonsense around here," they say. "Or at least keep the public displays of affection down. Have some modesty, will you?"

"Pack nonsense," Youngbae mutters irritably and snatches up Daesung's hand. "Daesung, let's just go."

Daesung lets himself be pulled up and away and finds it very difficult to resist tucking his tail between his legs as he goes, the heavy feeling of eyes boring holes into his back weighing on his conscience long after they've gone.

 

\--

 

The night is cool, the fire before him blazing. He revels in the pleasant heat of it against his chilled face. Daesung closes his eyes and breathes deeply, inhaling the scent of burning wood and cooking meat; he has already had his share, raw this time, given to him well before it ever touched the flames. Just how he likes it.

The susurrus of soft voices all around him blankets him, and with his belly pleasantly full, he drowses in a state of near-contentment. There is only one thing that could make this night better. With the exception of maybe Seungri on occasion, his packmates have all but stopped coming to these gatherings.

Daesung enjoys the company of these people, but in his packmates' total absence, it is hard not to feel acutely alone. He misses them.

A woman sidles up to him, startling him out of his contented reverie. First he hears, the rustling of her dress as she lowers herself to the log beside him. Then he smells her-- sweet but abnormally sharp for a human female.

He knows she is there, but he still jumps in surprise when he turns to face her. He did not expect her to be so _close_.

"So," the woman says, looking him up and down with interest. "Do you have it?"

"It?"

"The knot," she says candidly. "Don't most wolves have that?"

Daesung opens his mouth to reply, not giving it much thought. What he begins to say is "yes." Then he remembers where he is, awareness of his audience flooding back to him.

"No, I don't," he answers quietly. "Too much human blood, I guess. Too little wolf." He hates to lie... but it feels like the right thing to do.

She seems disappointed. On Daesung's other side, another woman chimes in, scolding her friend, "I can't believe you! That's hardly an appropriate thing to ask." Turning to Daesung, she apologizes. "I am so sorry, she's too curious for her own good."

"It's no problem," Daesung replies smoothly. He doesn't mind. Much. Their intrusive questions and insatiable curiosity is commonplace to him by now.

"That's not uncommon, actually," another adds. "I hear more wolves are becoming like that these days. Watered down with human blood. Wolves move into the cities and take a human husband or wife, have a few children. Weakens the wolf influence and all."

"Okay," the woman tries again, "But you've got claws, right? Are they as sharp as people say?"

"They're... pretty sharp," Daesung replies, his fingers flexing unconsciously.

"Show us?"

"I-- I don't think that's a good idea," he says. He tucks his hands into his coat pockets, suddenly insecure.

"Well why not? Maybe you should bring your boyfr-- sorry, your mate, is that right?-- with you next time. He didn't seem to have any reservations about it."

"He was terrifying," says another. "Too wild, just awful really. I don't know how you stand it."

" _Hey_ ," Daesung says, affronted. "Don't talk about him like that." _Especially not while I'm around to hear it._

They all give him an uneasy look. Eventually Daesung sighs, caving under the pressure.

"Fine, look, I'll show you my claws." His nails shift and stretch until they have formed into proper talons, weapons of nature's design meant for tearing and rending and, well, _killing_. He didn't want them to see this part of himself. "Just don't touch them, okay? They're sharp."

They gather around him, ooh-ing and ahh-ing until Daesung has had enough and tucks the claws away again.

"I hear that's one of the last things to go, those claws of yours. Necessary for survival and all, the way you wolves like to live," he hears. "I don't know, kid. Your kind as we know it might not be around for much longer."

To that Daesung has no reply. After all, what can he say to someone who, in no uncertain terms, has just called him a dying breed?

 

\--

 

As Daesung is leaving the gathering one night, a young girl catches him delicately by the arm, her small fingers light as a feather against his skin. A cautious touch. He turns and gives her his kindest smile-- closed-mouth of course-- to ease her fear of him.

"Here," she says, handing him a cloth sack. "This is for you."

"For me?" Daesung asks, accepting the gift graciously. His hand touches the bottom of the sack and comes away wet with blood. He opens his mouth, a question forming on the tip of his tongue.

"My family culled one of our goats from the herd last night," she says, beating him to it. "We kept the meat, of course, but I thought you might like to have some of the... other parts. Well, the organs," she says sheepishly. "You like them, right?"

 _Oh_. Oh, wow.

"Thank you," Daesung says, surprised yet inwardly so _pleased_. "And you're right. I... My pack will be very happy to have this." Seunghyun had tried for ages to get his hands on something like this-- had lost two jobs in the process-- and had only recently gave up the fight.

"I'm glad." She clasps her hands, smiles sweetly at him, and twirls on her heel, skipping away without another word. Daesung watches her go, feeling blessed.

He proudly presents the girl's gift to the others later that evening, waiting until they are all home for the night to show off his prize.

"Where did you get this?!" Seungri exclaims, looking over the pile with big eyes. As Daesung explains, Seungri looks up at him in awe.

"She just _gave_ it to you? Just like that?" He sits back and absorbs what he has heard. "Wow."

"Are you sure it's not poisoned?" Jiyong says, plucking the goat's heart from the pile and sniffing it experimentally.

"...She wouldn't do that," Daesung says, feeling a need to defend the girl. "They like me there. She was just thinking of us. Can't a human do a nice thing for a wolf?"

"I wouldn't touch it," Seunghyun says.

"It smells okay," Jiyong declares. "It's probably fine."

"This is great, Daesung," Youngbae adds, clapping him on the back. "Well done! Was this your plan all along? Get in close, earn their favor, win gifts? Not a bad plan."

Daesung makes a face at him. "Happy accident. I never planned for this to happen."

"Well, either way, keep it up."

Daesung tells them to take whatever they want. Jiyong is, of course, the first to make his selection; predictably, he chooses the heart, arguably the best part. Youngbae is next in line. Seunghyun does not budge when Daesung indicates it's his turn, so he pulls Seungri over instead. Their omega plucks up the kidneys, trotting away happily with one in each hand, grinning madly.

Finally, Daesung turns back to Seunghyun, who watches him wordlessly, his expression difficult to read.

"Don't you want anything?" he asks.

"I'm not a charity case."

"What?"

"I won't eat it. I don't want it."

"God, Seunghyun," Daesung sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation. "Why are you being like this? Can't I just give you something? I-- I want you to have it."

"Well then," Seunghyun says, scowling darkly, "Now you know how it feels to have your gift of food rejected. Hurts, doesn't it?"

Like a punch to the gut, Daesung feels winded by a surging combination of hurt and anger, the two emotions mixing and forming something caustic inside him. It _burns_.

"You and your pride," Daesung says, swallowing around his mounting frustration. "I didn't do that out of pride. I did that for _you_."

Seunghyun looks away.

Daesung continues, "Anyway, it isn't charity. It's..."

In all likelihood, it is probably a peace offering, but Daesung doesn't want to say that. It does not sit well with him, to think that the humans might be gifting them with food out of fear, or in an effort to appease them.

"It's kindness, Seunghyun," he settles on. "And so what if it was given to us? Does it matter who it came from when it costs us nothing? It's good meat, and it was free."

Seunghyun stares at him with an unreadable expression. Daesung expects an outpouring of rage or resentment, _something_... but the other seals his lips and says nothing. Seunghyun turns and leaves the room-- leaves the house altogether, disappearing out the front door with a dangerous calm that frightens Daesung more than his usual explosive anger.

Daesung deflates where he stands, collapsing into a chair in defeat.

This was supposed to be a good thing for them. Why does Seunghyun have to make it into something bad? Why does he have to make it so hard?

He reaches for the nearest piece of meat and brings it to his lips, nibbling on it absent-mindedly. A bit of comfort food, if you will. But much of the flavor is lost on him as his mind races through the months they have spent here, fraught with worry over Seunghyun's blatant inability and outright unwillingness to fit in.

As Daesung's teeth sink into soft, moist flesh, he wonders again, why does it matter? It's good meat. It's _good_.

And so, as Daesung gains favor among this small subset of humans, they begin to gift him with extra cuts of meat and organs of the livestock they own. Daesung recognizes that much of what they give him are considered castoffs, scraps that the people would otherwise dispose of... but for the sake of his packmates he can overlook that.

In his eyes they are gifts, and that is all that matters.

For the first time in a long time Daesung feels like a provider; never before has he been able to bring home so much meat to feed the pack, not when they were living wild and hunting regularly for what they consumed. He always contributed, obediently taking his place near the back of the formation, but rarely did he play a key role in landing a significant kill, and rarer still did he manage it single-handedly. That had often been Seunghyun's forte.

He feels more useful than ever. Daesung thrills at the idea that he can finally repay the others for all the years they have propped him up, all the years they have put food on the table, so to speak-- they never ate at a table before coming here. Sometimes his packmates seem to look at him differently, as if seeing him in a new light. Daesung preens under the attention. He feels the stirrings of something new in him, something suspiciously like _power_ , and he is unsure how to handle it.

But sometimes he catches Seunghyun watching him like he is a stranger, and something in his piercing gaze makes something in Daesung ache.

He feels... He feels...

Daesung pushes the feeling down and cages it up. It doesn't have to mean anything. It doesn't have to change anything.

 

\--

 

They didn't realize they could go outside.

Outside the city, that is. Their freedom to move in and out of the city walls is limited, the guards taking their names as they leave and making it clear that they expect them back by nightfall.

Seunghyun's temper flares; he has not needed _permission_ to do anything since he was a pup living under his parents' rule... Their admittedly loose rule.

Beyond the gate they thrill in running and romping across the open, uncultivated land, stretching their legs like they haven't in so long. A little ways out they find a nice grove thick with plant life, the rich soil fed by a burbling stream nearby. While Jiyong takes Youngbae and Seungri with him to hunt-- it's been too long since any of them have sunk teeth or claws into something alive-- Seunghyun and Daesung linger under the canopy of trees, needing nothing but each other's company and the abundance all around them.

With signs of life surrounding him, Seunghyun feels a familiar urge rising in him. He would have loved to have joined in the hunt, but there is something-- _someone_ \-- he would love to do more.

He nuzzles into Daesung, burying his face in the other's dark, messy hair. "Want to do it in the stream?"

In his arms Daesung turns and eyes the clear water with distrust. It is only a shallow stream, the current steady but not strong by the looks of it. Even so, Seunghyun knows Daesung's distrust of water, fearing it instinctively in the same way an animal knows from the day it is born that it must fear fire in order to survive.

Daesung hesitates, and that is all the answer Seunghyun needs.

"Nevermind," he says, and pulls Daesung down with him into the lush, green grass rising up all around them, nature's bed ready and waiting for the two of them to fall upon it. This is where their wild hearts belong.

This pocket of paradise is yet undisturbed, untouched by neither humans nor wolves, but Seunghyun does not intend to leave it that way. The grove's virgin grasses and its smattering of fragile flowers will not survive the things he and Daesung are about to get up to on top of them.

They shuck off their clothes and hit the ground with Daesung on top, and Seunghyun takes him tightly by the hips, centering him right where he wants him. There is no need for words between them; this is a practiced dance, a ritual they know well. After a quick prep, with hands braced on Seunghyun's chest, Daesung spreads his legs wide over Seunghyun's slim hips and sinks down onto him, his body opening around Seunghyun's length and receiving him one agonizingly slow inch at a time.

For Seunghyun it is both exquisite and excruciating, to lie prone under Daesung as he takes his sweet time, easing Seunghyun into his body like this isn't something they do all the time, like Seunghyun hadn't fucked him long and hard just last night, giving it to him good until Daesung had taken to writhing on the end of his cock, frantic with pleasure. Slow is fine sometimes-- Seunghyun is fine with taking it slow if that is what Daesung wants-- but slow is for _later_.

With short but sharp-tipped nails cutting into the skin at the tops of his mate's thighs, he urges Daesung to move _faster_ , to come down on his cock _harder_ , surrounding him with his exquisite, tight heat. He wants Daesung's full weight on him, the curve of his ass resting on his balls, nothing more of him left for the other to take.

Daesung just flashes him a cheeky grin and resists his urging, going as slowly as he damn well pleases. Seunghyun retaliates with a sudden savage thrust of his hips, planting his feet and stabbing his cock upward into his mate, closing the gap at last.

Daesung gasps and falls forward in surprise-- like he didn't expect this very thing from Seunghyun-- and Seunghyun only grins at him wickedly.

"You--"

"Too _slow_ ," Seunghyun complains, taking the other's hips in hand and coaxes him into rising, just a little, just enough that he can tease his cock out, only to drive back up-- back _in_ \-- into Daesung's velvety heat again. "This is why you don't get to be on top."

Daesung pouts at him until another sharp jab of Seunghyun's hips against the curve of his ass has his mouth falling open in pleasure. For a while he holds his position, hovering there over Seunghyun and allowing the man below him to do all the work, just making his body available and trusting the other to make this good for the both of them. And Seunghyun intends to, if he could just get the leverage...

Until Daesung suddenly remembers that he had a mission of his own.

He gives Seunghyun no warning before he drops onto him abruptly, seating himself fully, forcing Seunghyun's hips down hard to the grass beneath them-- flattened beyond repair by now. Shooting him a determined look, Daesung goes to work on blowing Seunghyun's mind.

Even with the splendor all around them, Seunghyun never once even considers letting his eyes leave the man atop him, his hungry gaze caught fast in the snare of all that is _Daesung_ , every expert roll of his hips tightening the coil in Seunghyun's belly like a trap waiting to be sprung. Seunghyun drinks in the way his mate bounces on his cock, his own blood-red cock vanishing into Daesung again and again. The soft hairs on Daesung's tail tickle the inside of his thighs as he moves over him, every pull and tug of the other man's body around his sensitive length drawing Seunghyun's pleasure up from the deep and tempting it ever closer to the surface.

In Seunghyun's eyes Daesung is always jaw-droppingly beautiful. But Daesung _in motion_ is pure decadence; there is nothing Seunghyun would love to feast his eyes on more. In the way he looks, in the way he sounds, in the way he moves, in the way he feels-- Seunghyun is utterly lost. In this moment there exists nothing but the two of them, the building heat inside him, the rhythmic give and take of pleasure between him and his mate, this incredible man who could never be anything less than his everything.

So he lies back and watches as Daesung takes his pleasure for a time... but soon the atmosphere of the grove, with the earth flourishing beneath them everything about this place screaming _fertility_ and _life_ , gets the best of him. Though Daesung's performance captivates him, Seunghyun can no longer ignore the desperate, growing need to turn his mate over and drive into his heat relentlessly-- mutual indulgence at a breathtaking pace. That is more their style, after all.

So he does just that.

In one smooth move Seunghyun lifts Daesung off himself and rolls him into the grass, flipping him onto his back.

"Open up," he says, breathless. Daesung does, parting his legs so that Seunghyun can take his place between. He hoists his legs up by the knee, hooking them over his shoulder, and drives all his weight forward until the other is nearly bent in half. Daesung's eyes flash with a wild light as he gazes up at him, waiting, ready.

"Do it," he breathes, voice rough with need, " _Fuck me_ ," and Seunghyun has never been more thrilled to oblige him.

Bearing down on the backs of Daesung's legs, Seunghyun presses forward and into him, filling his hole over and over again. With every thrust Daesung gasps under him, panting for air, lips hanging open around moans of encouragement. He presses palms to the earth, claws unsheathing from the ends of his fingers and digging deeply into the soil to anchor him in place against the force of Seunghyun's onslaught.

Seunghyun stares at the way his dark hair spills out over the grass in much the same way his lashes fan out across high cheekbones, his eyes squeezed closed, overwhelmed by-- _everything_.

"Daesung," he gasps out, "Hey, look at me." Daesung lifts a lid just enough to peek up at him from under his lashes. Another sharp thrust from Seunghyun has both his eyes squeezing shut again.

" _Nngh_ \--"

"Look at me," Seunghyun says again.

" _Seunghyun_ ," Daesung groans, tossing his head from side to side and lifting his chin to the sky, offering up his long, pale throat. Unwittingly, Seunghyun's eyes are drawn to the vein pulsing down one side of his neck. He nearly takes the bait, bending down further to seal his lips over the vein-- his mate's neck is his greatest weakness-- but at the last moment he wrenches his gaze back to Daesung's face, which is thrown open in abandon.

All but his eyes. Seunghyun cannot explain why, but he _needs_ to see his eyes.

"I want to see you," he says. He blinks sweat from his eyes. "Don't hide from me."

"Not hiding," Daesung pants. "I just... this is so..."

"I know." Seunghyun grunts and eases out of the other for a moment. The way Daesung's hole seems to suck at his cock as he pulls away is a sensation he could never tire of-- it fills Seunghyun with the filthiest delight. "Fuck, we should have done this sooner."

Daesung's dark eyes drift open but he seems far away, his gaze unfocused.

"Stay with me," Seunghyun says, frowning. Slots himself into the man under him again with a fluid roll of his hips, demanding his attention. They are as close as they can possibly be, and still there seems to be a distance between them, a gradually widening chasm that he cannot seem to hold closed.

He just wants Daesung here with him, right now, in every way.

"I'm here," Daesung says, finally looking at him-- _seeing_ him. "I'm--" He suddenly jerks like he's been stung, and Seunghyun knows that he has found it, has struck it, knows that he has gotten far enough in to reach that secret place tucked away deep inside his mate. It drives Daesung _wild_. He grins wickedly.

"Good?"

" _Ah!_ Fuck, _Seunghyun_ , that's-- oh, _there_ ," Daesung cries, bucking against him as best he can, crushed under Seunghyun as he is.

"Here?" Seunghyun teases, diving into him again, smooth and precise, and Daesung comes apart, falling to pieces on the end of his cock.

" _Yes_ ," Daesung groans, and the unfiltered need in his husky voice sends something molten inside Seunghyun _surging_.

"I've got you. You're _mine_ ," He growls, pulling Daesung's legs on his shoulders apart further so he can move in closer if possible-- if he could crash his body into Daesung's until they became one, inseparable until the end of their days, possessing the other wolf as thoroughly as if the other's body was his own, Seunghyun would-- He lets the tips of his claws emerge just enough to poke Daesung's calves, pricking at the skin but not drawing blood. Their sharp sting is a promise and a threat.

 _If you're running from something, if you're hiding_ , he vows silently, _I'll find you. I will always find you._

Seunghyun punches his promise into Daesung's eager body with his cock, as many times as he has to until Daesung shudders and bucks under him and comes all across his own chest with a choked cry, still bent in half under Seunghyun's weight. Seunghyun continues to plunge into his mate's spent body in pursuit of his own release...

...and not a minute later he finds it, filling Daesung with all he has.

He unhooks Daesung's legs from his shoulders, letting his feet come to rest in the soft grass. Under and all around them is the wreckage of their aggressive mating; Seunghyun is immensely satisfied at the sight. He takes care to press close, remaining inside Daesung as a yearning to share his knot with him unfolds, the desire stronger than ever here in this place brimming with evidence of life and abundance. He lounges on Daesung as the telltale swelling takes hold below and wishes they could stay this way forever-- the two of them locked together, physically joined by their unique heritage.

Up top Daesung lets loose a long, drawn-out groan of contentment and flexes around him, beyond pleased. When he opens his eyes, for a split second, in the sunlight, they seem to flash gold.

Seunghyun sits up and takes notice. "Your eyes," he comments, "You've got flecks of gold."

"Mmm?" Daesung hums. "Do I?" He lets his eyes fall shut and Seunghyun makes a sound of protest.

"No, open up, let me see." He brushes a gentle finger over Daesung's eyelid, so softly he barely feels it himself, persuading it open again. Daesung lies there patiently as he looks him over.

"It's fading already," Seunghyun says sadly. "Wish our eyes were gold all the time."

"We're outcasts enough as it is," Daesung says, making a face at the thought.

"Whatever. Doesn't change how I feel."

"It's so bright," Daesung says, squinting at the sunlight through the leaves. "I wonder if gold eyes would be extra sensitive."

"Maybe," Seunghyun murmurs in thought. "Oh, check mine. Are they gold too?" Daesung peers at him.

"A little bit," he says softly, careful fingers coming to rest at the sides of Seunghyun's head, framing his face as he studies him. "It looks like quartz crystal."

It has been a long time since they last found and cracked open a rock that contained hidden crystal. Too bad. All the pack thought them pretty enough, but Jiyong always did seem to like them more than the rest.

Daesung closes his eyes and breathes in deeply. His hands curl in Seunghyun's hair as Seunghyun cleans the cooling come from his skin, his tongue flattening against the planes of his chest and diving into the dips of his collarbone, not willing to waste any of it.

After Seunghyun's knot releases he and Daesung rest for awhile. Then they do it all again, enjoying a slower pace the second time around, savoring each other amid the richness of the earth under them, over them, all around them. This time Daesung turns around and assumes a familiar position, settling on all fours in the lush grass as Seunghyun moves leisurely behind him, his face buried against the back of Daesung's neck, mouthing over the collection of scars scattered across the tops of his shoulders, his own in progress work of art on a living canvas. Some of his scars are raised and he can feel them under his lips; others are so faint and flat that they can scarcely be seen, much less felt.

All the while, his hand slides up and down Daesung's stiff cock, slicking him up with pre-come and stroking him with a firm grip from root to tip. Daesung's hips follow the movement reflexively, fucking himself back on Seunghyun's cock effortlessly, without his even trying.

Through the trees the dappled sunlight kisses their naked skin, an occasional breeze carrying away the heat of their joined bodies. Seunghyun's heart swells, surrounded by everything he cherishes-- minus a few missing packmates-- all he has found lacking back in the city. He doesn't want to go back. The thought of passing beneath the walls again fills him with a thick, inescapable dread.

Out here, like this, he feels alive again. He does not have to ask to know that Daesung feels the same. One look at the other wolf and it is clear by the way he lights up from within, his skin seeming to glow. Daesung looks healthier; Seunghyun feels healthier. Amid the shade and sunlight they are revived, renewed, as if their old selves have arisen from an impossibly deep sleep to walk the earth again.

Seunghyun's own pleasure crests and he hangs there for a moment, suspended, Daesung's narrow hips pulled flush against his. Then he crashes down from his high and collapses, falling forward onto the other's strong back. In his hand Daesung's cock twitches, but he does not come. Not yet.

Seunghyun will take him there. He will always take him there.

He pulls out before his knot has time to form. "Turn over," he says, slapping at Daesung's hip.

Daesung rolls eagerly onto his backside until he is sitting in the grass with legs splayed, his erect cock and tightly drawn-up balls heavy between his thighs. Seunghyun wets his lips. His dazed expression tells Seunghyun that this is going to be over almost as soon as it begins.

He dives in and devours Daesung's cock without finesse, without grace; neither is important right now. Above him Daesung chokes on his next breath as Seunghyun chokes on _him_ , taking him in deep, the head of his cock bumping the soft, spongy spot at the back of Seunghyun's throat. Daesung falls back onto his elbows and Seunghyun goes with him, pressing closer, swallowing him down until his nose meets the hairs at the base of Daesung's cock.

He feels no urge to cough, no need to gag. They have done this often enough by now.

Sealing his lips tightly around the shaft, Seunghyun sucks hard-- and just like that, Daesung floods his mouth with come. Seunghyun drinks up all that is he given, gulps his mate's gift down ravenously like a starving man.

No... like a starving _wolf_.

 

\--

 

"I missed this," Daesung says, fingers drifting lazily over the ends of the grass beside him.

"Maybe we can take some back with us," Seunghyun suggests. The city is all stone streets and dirt roads and graveled paths. Sure, there is grass, but it pales in comparison to the richness of nature they have enjoyed here.

"It won't be the same," Daesung says a bit sadly. "It will just die."

Seunghyun strokes a hand along the length of Daesung's body, palm soaking up the feel of his soft skin and the contours of his muscle, firm and strong. Daesung's tail thumps against the ground in peaceful contentment from time to time, and Seunghyun finds his own tail mimicking him without realizing.

Drowsing in the heat, Seunghyun thinks that if this is all he is good for now-- offering up his body to Daesung, a provider of pleasure for his mate-- if that is his only purpose here, then so be it. What they do with each other, _for_ each other, is pure and simple, nothing complicated about it, humans and their ideas about _modesty_ be damned. He will never be ashamed of nor feel a need to hide the wonderful things he gets up to with Daesung, his reason for being.

"I don't want to go back," Daesung says in a voice just above a whisper.

"Then let's just stay here," Seunghyun murmurs. He means every word. The land is ripe enough to support them, home to plenty of prey to feed them. They could scrape up a shelter out here, a simple dwelling for the five of them, its proximity to the walls of the city be damned.

But it is only a fantasy, little more than a dream. The city would send their scouts to tear down their home, humans and wolves working together to destroy their dream. Settlements within sight of the walls are strictly forbidden. Resource management or some such nonsense. They may as well leave the area altogether.

"Yeah," Daesung says wistfully, stretching languidly under Seunghyun's touch. A moment later he reaches up and tugs Seunghyun down into a long kiss, their mutual longing a tangible thing between them.

The other wolf wants something from him; if only Seunghyun could figure out _what_ , and how to give it.

Eventually Daesung decides to visit the stream for a drink, rolling away and pushing to his feet with a natural grace. Seunghyun watches him rise, appreciating the sight of his own come between his mate's legs. His seed is smudged over the skin high on his thighs and between his cheeks where it has inevitably begun to seep out of him.

He reaches up to touch-- to grab Daesung and press fingers up inside him, to push his come back into the other wolf where it belongs-- but the other is already beyond his reach. His fingers close around air. _Damn_.

It is some time later when the others return to them. The racket they make as they come crashing through the brush and into the clearing might have alarmed them had their familiar scents carried on the wind not given them away long before they were near enough to hear. In their excitement they look as elated as he and Daesung feel, their faces lit up by smiles as dazzling as the sun. Seunghyun spies a few errant smears of blood adorning the edges of their lips, sees flakes of it under their nails. They must have tried to clean up after whatever mischief they've gotten up to, but after all... wolves will be wolves.

When Jiyong sees them his face turns mischievous. "You two had enough of each other yet?" Then, "Where are your clothes? I hope you didn't shred them."

"They're around here somewhere," Seunghyun says, unconcerned. "Do you think they would turn us away if we weren't dressed?" At Jiyong's shrug, Seunghyun grumbles, "Humans are strange."

They climb back into their clothes, and Seunghyun takes a moment to grieve as all of Daesung's beautiful skin disappears under that old, worn coat of his. Though there is only a slight chill in the air, Daesung wears that old thing everywhere these days.

"Ready to head back?" Seunghyun isn't ready, but the sun is low already and they have a long way to.

As they pass through the city gate on their way back in, Seunghyun feels like his heart has been locked away again. Or perhaps it was left behind in the grove, dropped somewhere in the lush grass, forgotten. He clings to the precious memory of the place, holds tightly to his remembered joy-- of an afternoon spent with Daesung at his side, beneath him, above him, all around him.

He lays a hand against the small of Daesung's back just to feel him at his side. The heat of him under his palm, faintly felt through his jacket-- Daesung's body has always run so hot, after all-- proves a small but welcome comfort.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: [Faceless](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDa3k1dXg1RDVBSW8) (Daesung)


	4. Chapter 4

Seunghyun knows Daesung enjoys spending time with the townsfolk. He wishes he felt even remotely the same.

Daesung seems to settle comfortably into his surroundings, far more at ease than Seunghyun in the presence of so many humans. _Too_ at ease, he thinks. It unnerves him to witness the other wolf blending in so.

All around him small talk sails through the air, the people's idle chatter drifting in one ear and out the other. Seunghyun doesn't care about these creatures; their lives mean nothing to him. He glowers at the flames dancing before him, his thoughts floating far away.

Then, before he knows what's happening, the voices around him rise as one, joining in song. _Singing_. It alarms him at first; he doesn't know why they are singing, what purpose this serves. They all are smiling and they seem happy, but...

It reminds Seunghyun of coyotes yipping and yelping in the deep of night as they set after their prey, the pack's plaintive cries mingling in an eerie call of the wild. He feels strangely outnumbered. Threatened, even. Beside him Daesung seems equally perturbed.

"Sing along, won't you?" he hears a woman say to Daesung.

"I don't know the song," Daesung replies, looking utterly lost.

"You've never heard this one?" The woman says, aghast. "Everyone knows it!"

"I haven't. Sorry," As Daesung seems to curl in on himself, Seunghyun wraps a protective arm around him. He glares at anyone and everyone who looks their way, warding off any attempt at inviting him to join in. He wants no part of this.

Later, when their voices have died down, his ears perk up at a soft sound at his side. Daesung is humming quietly to himself, his face set in concentration as he tries to recreate the melody he had just heard.

Seunghyun stares.

"You have a lovely voice," says a woman on Daesung's other side. Seunghyun agrees with her with every fiber of his being.

Daesung blushes hard. _Blushes_. Seunghyun is appalled. "Oh, no, I was just..."

"Just...?"

Very quietly he says, "I've never sung before."

"Sing for us, please?" the woman pleads, her eyes alight with excitement. "It's okay if you don't know any words. Just let your voice carry you. Let it happen."

So with a deep breath, Daesung does. His voice shakes as he begins, the gentle sound a fragile, wavering thing... but still so captivating, smooth and enticing to Seunghyun's astonished ears. The longer he carries on the bolder he becomes, confidence in his newfound ability growing and lending his voice increasing strength. The other man's eyes slide closed as he loses himself to the music, a melody of his making.

Seunghyun is enamoured, and a cursory glance around him reveals that he is not alone, as one by one the others fall silent and tune into the beautiful song coming from the wolf in their midst. Clearly, this was not expected.

Seunghyun is just as stunned as the rest of them. How did he not know his mate had this hidden talent?

And why did it have to be humans who brought it out of him? Seunghyun has always adored Daesung's voice, soft and mellow to match his personality, but he'd had no idea what he could be capable of with a little persuasion.

Daesung's eyes drift open, refocusing. When he sees the many faces all turned to him his voice cuts off, ending his song mid-note. He flushes under the attention and stares intently into the fire, embarrassed.

"You sing so well. You have a real talent!" the woman praises him; several voices rise up in agreement. "We're going to teach you some songs. Don't worry, the words won't be hard to learn."

Daesung grins shyly. Then, as if suddenly remembering Seunghyun's presence at his side, he turns to him, an eager light in his eyes.

"Seunghyun, you try," he says, breathless.

Seunghyun balks. "What, me? No." He won't. No sound he utters could ever match what he has just heard from Daesung, he's sure of it.

"Please?"

"I can't... I don't think..." Daesung makes sad eyes at him, and after a mighty struggle, Seunghyun surrenders. Pursing his lips tightly, he hums a few notes... very, _very_ quietly. Daesung watches him with rapt attention, his hopeful smile never faltering.

It is... It's not good, Seunghyun thinks. He doesn't have the voice for this, or the talent. Or the control, or even the desire. He stops and shakes his head at the other wolf.

"I can't sing," Seunghyun says, sorry to disappoint. "I don't really want to, anyway. It's okay. You've got enough talent for both of us." Daesung's smile wobbles.

"You barely even tried. I know you can do it," he says, always encouraging. "Maybe later when it's just us. I want to hear you sing."

Seunghyun does not in reply; only takes Daesung's nearest hand in his. "No. I want to hear _you_ sing more. Who knew? You should do it more often."

_But not for these people. For me._

The smile Daesung bestows on him is bright like the sun, its radiance leaving Seunghyun feeling momentarily blinded as his mate turns back to the woman at his side. She fawns over him, talking him up over his newly-discovered talent. Stroking his ego in a way that sets Seunghyun's blood simmering with jealousy.

He loves this man too much. He wants nothing for Daesung but happiness, wishes him pure, unbridled joy. Daesung deserves everything good in this world... yet Seunghyun cannot bear to watch this unfold before him.

He wonders, does Daesung realize what he is becoming?

To Seunghyun's eyes, every day the other wolf is changing shape, shifting into something curious... something suspiciously human. Seungyhun can do nothing but stand by and look on helplessly as Daesung undergoes this slow transformation, all the qualities that Seunghyun treasures in him like plucked feathers floating to the ground. Abandoning his wolf heritage and his sense of self. Abandoning the pack.

Abandoning him.

 

\--

 

Seunghyun discovers a brilliant concoction, and eventually he has to admit that the humans do have some pretty great ideas.

They call it _wine_.

The first time Seunghyun drinks the stuff he passes out shortly after. Lights out, right out in the field. When he wakes some time later it is dark outside; the sun has set. His head feels like it is splitting apart atop his shoulders as he sits up with some effort and scrubs the dirt off his face. Of course, by that late hour everyone has gone home for the day. That they had left Seunghyun lying there in the dirt, unconscious, does not surprise him in the least... and frankly, he does not care. He would have done the same were he in their shoes.

He does not care for these people, and they do not care for him.

After that Seunghyun tries the drink a great deal more cautiously. He finds that if he paces himself the effect of the wine is a pleasant one, filling him with a permeating sense of ease, and everything in the world is somehow made better, brighter... funnier? A little more and his head goes comfortably fuzzy, his senses dulled. Dimly, he recognizes that this should be cause for alarm, this numbing of his senses... but it's as if the thought comes to him from very far away, from somewhere outside himself. It simply isn't worth dwelling on.

In short, Seunghyun loves wine. And because he loves it he shares it with Daesung, just as he does with every good thing he discovers.

The first time Daesung takes a sip his whole face scrunches up, his nose wrinkling at the bitter taste.

"How can you drink this?" he asks, staring down at the bottle with disgust. His lips are stained a dark violet where the wine had touched them; to Seunghyun the sight calls to mind memories of his mate's mouth bloodstained from feasting on freshly-caught prey, the color dark and vivid against Daesung's pink lips. Seunghyun wants to run his tongue over them, lapping at the stains.

But if he starts them down that path now, how will they ever finish the bottle between them?

"It's not how it tastes," Seunghyun says, "It's how it makes you _feel_. Drink more." He tips the bottle back toward Daesung, encouraging him to give it another try.

Between the two of them they empty the bottle rather quickly. For a while they have a good time, the wine making them merry in a way they usually are not, drunk not on each other for a change, but on the alcohol flowing through them.

"What even is this stuff?" Daesung asks, bewildered laughter bubbling out of him as he peers curiously into the empty glass bottle.

"Great, isn't it?" Daesung nods, shooting him a goofy grin. Seunghyun cannot resist-- he doesn't try to-- and tackles him playfully, but Daesung is not prepared to take his weight. They tumble to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

And so all is well... up until the moment Daesung goes suddenly quiet, and their fun ends with him being sick on the floor.

"This is poison," he gasps out, all his previous good humor lost. Seunghyun drops down beside him and brushes his hair out of his face, feeling responsible. "You shouldn't... You shouldn't drink this."

"You're just not used to it," Seunghyun says softly, slurring his words a little and not caring.

As wolves, they have iron-lined stomachs and a robust natural immunity to many things; they are rarely sick. This, Seunghyun thinks as Daesung gags around his nausea, is highly unusual.

So he sits with Daesung dutifully as he suffers through it. Sticks by him as, under the petting of his hands Daesung heaves again, his body rejecting the wine and expelling the liquid contents of his stomach in painful-looking spasms. Coming back up, diluted as it is, the red wine looks eerily like blood.

Seunghyun feels terrible. Maybe he won't offer it to Daesung again, after all.

 

\--

 

Sometimes Daesung keeps treats and sweet breads from the bakery in his coat pockets, for the kids who meet him on the street on his way home. The children enjoy his company, and he enjoys theirs; loves to make them laugh and send them on their way with something small and sweet to nibble on.

But sometimes it isn't children who meet him on the way back; it is his and Seungri's bullies, the gang from before who had shouted insults at them as they walked the streets. He passes them as quietly as he can, turning away so as not to draw their gaze. It often works, and they let him pass with a long stare, nothing more.

Daesung wishes that _often_ meant _always_. Wishes the men could be content with the tenuous peace between him and them. Wishes they would just leave him _alone_.

He can feel their eyes on him like a physical touch as he passes one evening. He tries to make himself look small but still they call out to him, "Hey! Hey, wolf!"

Daesung desperately wants to avoid them. It has been a long day, and he doesn't know that he has the patience to to handle them delicately.

"You're not deaf, are you, wolf? We know you hear us."

Suppressing a heavy sigh, Daesung steels himself and faces them, trying his best to appear open and friendly.

"Yes?"

"Yeah, you. What are you doing out here, anyway? Don't tell me you've actually got a job."

Daesung plasters on a smile and digs hands into the front pockets of his coat, pulling out a package of sweet breads. He offers them up, hoping to make nice.

"Would you like this? It's from today's batch at the bakeshop," Daesung says kindly. "Where I work."

The men seem surprised, blessedly silent for a moment. But of course it does not last; they sneer at him, replying with ugly expressions, "Ugh, no. We wouldn't be caught dead eating anything your dirty paws have touched."

_Paws?_

Daesung's heart sinks. There is nothing he can do against such stubborn contempt. He has tried to deflect their taunts, shrugging their abuse off of him like droplets of water rolling off a duck's back. He never reacts, keeps his head down, holding onto the fading hope that they will soon lose interest and let him live. But it does not seem to be enough; it's never enough.

He wants them to treat him as a human, with respect and dignity. Not as the animal they insist he is. Not as the wolf he is.

He turns and walks away, leaving them and all their loathing behind.

"Go back to where you came from, you and the rest of your pack of mutts," he hears. "Your kind doesn't belong here."

Daesung knows in his heart that as long as they have even a drop of wolf blood in them, the wild influence ever waning, there will always be humans who will never accept them.

 

\--

 

Seunghyun cards a hand through Daesung's messy hair, his fingers coming away damp with sweat. On the bed before him Daesung bites down on his own lip hard, teeth digging into the soft flesh and leaving a mark, a shallow imprint of pointed canines. Seunghyun runs a thumb over the abused skin fondly. It will fade before they are done here.

Sometimes, simply observing is its own thrill. And Daesung caught in the throes of pleasure is certainly _thrilling_ to behold.

Daesung groans and tosses his head back, his dark hair painting a perfect contrast against the pale sheets as Jiyong's head bobs over his lap. For good measure, Seunghyun runs a hand through Jiyong's hair too; the other wolf purrs in pleasure at his touch, humming around his mouthful until Daesung squirms.

And so it goes, Seunghyun appreciating the feast of skin laid out before him as his alpha pleasures his mate, admiring his packmates with ravenous eyes until Daesung throws his head to the side and makes a sound filled with such raw _need_... and something deep inside Seunghyun ignites, his body suddenly ablaze. It is a very precise sound that Seunghyun has heard often, the sheer want in Daesung's sweet voice etched into his heart.

He glances down to where Jiyong's lips are stretched tight around the hard length of his mate's cock. He peers beyond that, to where the other wolf's hand is cupped under Daesung's balls, his slender fingers hidden from view between Daesung's legs, curled somewhere under his body.

Seunghyun can guess what those fingers of his are getting up to.

He snarls at the other wolf-- alpha status be damned, Daesung is _his_ \-- and Jiyong's eyes flick up to his almost lazily. It would be hard for anyone to look dangerous in his position, his mouth full of cock, one cheek poking out obscenely, but somehow Jiyong manages it. He is alpha for a reason.

But the rules, Seunghyun thinks furiously. The fucking _rules_. He _knows_ them, and still...

"Jiyong..."

Jiyong pulls off, sucking hard all the way so that when Daesung's cock pops out of his mouth it does so with a visceral, wet sound. Daesung jerks under him, and at the same time Jiyong's hand comes away.

"He likes it," Jiyong states, patting Daesung affectionately on one muscled thigh. "I'm just giving him what he likes."

"He likes what you're doing up front just fine. There's no need to go exploring," Seunghyun grouses.

Jiyong waggles his fingers at him. They're a little wet, slick with spit or come, or both. "What can I say? I'm a pioneer."

Seunghyun glares at him. "Sorry to break it to you, but you're years too late. Already been there, done that. Too many times to count."

Jiyong chokes at that, his hand flying up to cover his mouth as he laughs. It's so _Jiyong_ that Seunghyun cannot help the tiny smile that tugs at his lips too.

" _Guys_ ," Daesung whines from between them. His lifts his hips in invitation, his cock neglected and waiting, still a little wet with spit that is rapidly drying as his two senior packmates argue over him.

Jiyong looks down at him regretfully. "Alright, I get it," he sighs. Retaking his position over Daesung's hips, he says cheekily, "Fingering rights belong to Seunghyun. Guess I'll just finish sucking you off."

"Please do," Daesung whimpers, looking desperate, and Seunghyun really can't blame him. After all, he isn't usually kept waiting.

 

\--

 

Seunghyun drinks. Then he dreams.

He is submerged in water, and Daesung is there with him. It is deep; Seunghyun's feet touch nothing as he kicks at the water below him, keeping afloat. At first he and Daesung are near enough to touch, their hands reaching out to one another and fingers brushing. But the current is strong and it carries Daesung away from him before he can pull the other man back.

The next thing Seunghyun knows, Daesung is drowning, but Seunghyun is not watching from a distance. As is possible only in dreams, he is suddenly inside Daesung-- he _is_ Daesung-- seeing through his eyes, feeling the cold and the pressure closing in around him. He kicks out all around him, enveloped in total darkness, trying his hardest to swim but still sinking, finding the surface always just beyond his reach.

There is nothing to see in this place devoid of light; he only _feels_ as he inhales, and instead of oxygen his lungs squeeze painfully around a sudden rush of icy water.

There is no air here. He cannot _breathe_.

Seunghyun wakes drenched in sweat; it does little to help him shake the phantom sensation of being underwater. Beside him on the bed he can feel Daesung's familiar weight, can hear as well as feel the slow and steady rise and fall of his chest in sleep.

Seunghyun is glad that he is still asleep. Daesung has not slept especially well since settling here, has always preferred a simple mattress on the ground to a raised bed frame like they have here. Something about being in contact with the earth, he once said.

...Which brings Seunghyun's thoughts back around to his dream. Daesung fears water. He steadfastly avoids anything too deep for him to stand in. One of these days Seunghyun will have to teach him to swim, he decides. How have they put something like that off for so long, anyway?

Seunghyun stares blearily at the empty bottle across the room, a sliver of moonlight through their closed curtains striking the glass and making it shine. The longer he stares at it the more convinced he is that maybe, just maybe, it might do him some good to cut back on the wine. He loves the stuff, but he could do without the nightmares.

 

\--

 

As if it isn't enough that Daesung presents them with food donations from their human neighbors, now he can be found accepting said food from the hands of their packmates. Seunghyun was admittedly resentful before. He got over it-- mostly. But this new development has him feeling downright territorial.

Today Seunghyun walks in on Youngbae feeding him, pinching the meat between his fingers and depositing it gently into Daesung's waiting mouth.

Seunghyun growls low in his throat at the sight. There are too many people pulling on his mate these days, humans and wolves alike. Special attention from their packmates is nothing new, but it pricks at Seunghyun with a new intensity that he cannot explain. Something has to be done about it.

When Daesung's lips close around Youngbae's next offering, catching the ends of his fingers in the process, Seunghyun's jealously sears through him, too great to be dismissed this time around. He stalks over to them and looms there, an ominous presence.

Youngbae leans back a fraction but does not step away. He lifts his chin and returns Seunghyun's smoldering glare with one of his own.

_How dare he_. Seunghyun's heart surges in his chest, his blood pumping hotly. His nostrils flare and he shifts his weight, preparing to launch himself at the other wolf. Preparing for a _fight_.

A hand suddenly appears before Seunghyun's face, a slice of red meat between forefinger and thumb. "Here," Daesung says, and presses it to Seunghyun's lips. Reflexively, he allows it, parting his lips and accepting the offering.

His blood cools; his claws retract. Daesung will never let things go bad between them, will not stand by as relations turn sour. That much about him, at least, has not changed. Seunghyun can't imagine that it ever will.

He turns and takes Daesung's hips in hand as the other wolf wraps arms around his neck and falls into him for a fierce kiss. In an uncharacteristically forward move, his lips open against Seunghyun's, prying them open, his tongue diving into his mouth and tangling with his own. Under Daesung's advances, Seunghyun is left with no choice at all but to grant his full attention to the man in his arms who demands it.

When he next opens his eyes, Daesung pressing another piece of the meat to his lips, now feeding _him_ , Youngbae has left the room.

_Good_ , Seunghyun thinks, and pulls Daesung closer, fitting the two of them together tightly and biting at the other's fingers as he takes the bit of meat. _This one is mine anyway_.

 

\--

 

The night is cool, the air crisp. Even with Seunghyun's absence keenly felt Daesung is largely content, joining in several rounds of song with his human companions before several of the ladies turn to him as one and implore him for a solo.

"Please," they beg sweetly, "Your voice is so beautiful. It deserves to be heard." Daesung isn't so sure, but he obliges them anyway, his voice lifting in a soft tune. The women seem to lap it up, gazing at him with stars in their eyes. At their outpouring of affection Daesung feels lifted up, light enough to take to the sky if he just had the wings for it. Even without his packmates beside him, he is almost happy here, right now. It's nice to feel accepted.

Soon nature's call tugs at him, a familiar fullness that he cannot put off any longer.

"Need to take a piss?" Daesung nods, and the man he had asked points across the field. "Go out back behind that shed or something. Nothing to it."

He ducks behind a nearby shed and takes care of his business. Among his pack this would be nothing; it's the most natural thing in the world. But the humans have gone to great efforts to encourage modesty in him. With every night spent here in their presence, he is learning the mystery of their ways.

He has just finished and tucked himself away when his ears detect someone's approach, their soft footsteps giving them away in the dark.

"Hey," he says when the woman comes into view, giving her a pleasant smile, though she probably cannot see it here in the shadows. Daesung's sharp eyes can see well enough, even now on this dark night when the moon is only a silver in the sky.

She gives him a long look, sizing him up from head to toe and making no effort to hide it. He shifts nervously.

"You know why I'm here, don't you?" she says, advancing, and to without meaning to Daesung takes a step back. He recognizes this woman, remembers how she had taken an interest in him weeks before, had asked him about his... about his knot.

Something about her intimidates him tremendously.

"Oh don't be like that," she says, stepping right up to him. She flattens her hands against his broad chest. "You know how to play, don't you? You're no stranger to this."

The scent of her desire slams into him hard, a heady musk that makes his head spin as all his blood swiftly rushes south. Betrayed by his own body. Her hands glide to his shoulders and she pushes him down-- her touch a demanding pressure-- and under her urging Daesung goes down.

His knees hit the ground.

She sinks down with him. "You're a wolf, after all," she murmurs, and pushes him again, backwards this time. He lands on his ass, without grace or form, wincing as his tail is caught painfully under him. In the two seconds it takes him to straighten it out, the woman seats herself on his lap, her pale legs spread wide and skirt hiked up to her hips.

Daesung has had women before. Or they have had him. The distinction is not always so clear among wolves. Before he joined Seunghyun's pack, Daesung had been through his fair share of partners, male and female, not always because he sought them out but because sometimes it simply happened. It did not always have to mean anything; often it meant very little. Two compatible wolves would cross paths and fuck like rabbits, simply because they felt like it. Then they would part, each going his or her individual way. Such was life for a wolf in the wild.

Were it not for her unmistakably human scent, Daesung would ponder the possibility of this woman being part wolf, herself. Just as he is but far more thinned out. They way she puts him under a spell, sending him to his knees with a firm touch and a heated look...

Daesung can't help it. He is weak to such displays of dominance.

He never did finish zipping himself up; the fly of his jeans hangs open and gives her easy access, her hand dipping in with ease and closing around his length. He fingers are thin and small, her grip on him a foreign thing, so much softer than he is accustomed to.

_Soft_ , Daesung thinks. Nothing about Seunghyun is _soft_. From the chiseled line of his jaw to his strong hands and long fingers, Seunghyun is all sharp edges and firm muscle and hard bone.

_Seunghyun_...

"God, you have a nice one," the woman breathes, palming at his cock and coaxing him to full hardness. "Too bad it's wasted on you and your boyfriend."

_Boyfriend_. He wishes they would stop using that word to describe Seunghyun. Daesung hates how it does not even come close to defining what Seunghyun is to him.

" _Ah--_ " he gasps, gritting his teeth as she gives his cock a long, swift stroke, "I don't-- I don't know what you mean."

"I've seen what the two of you get up to," she purrs. "You're not exactly discreet. Not that I'm complaining. You wolves are so..."

Daesung flushes. It's true. As wolves, they have never felt a need to hide what they do with each other, have never been asked to conceal their coupling.

"But he never lets you use it, not like you're meant to," she continues, and Daesung only stares at her, his mind foggy with unexpected lust. She leans in close and whispers, "That's why I'm here."

"Seunghyun is... dominant," Daesung begins, not sure how to explain it to her. "That's just-- _ah--_ that's just how it is," he pants, forcing the words out around his mounting pleasure.

He wishes she had a wolf's nose, the same keen sense of smell as he and his packmates. There would be no need to explain; she would smell Seunghyun's musk on him and know without a doubt that Daesung is _taken_ , that his mate has laid stark claim to him in every possible way. She would recognize what that means, how it defines the terms of their relationship and spells out their rules of behavior around each other.

But the woman is human, and Daesung is reminded yet again that humans do not understand the ways of wolves.

"You guys really are like animals," she says against his lips. Daesung frowns and she draws back, rushing to explain. "Oh, no, _honey_. I mean that in the best of ways. It's fascinating." She touches the scars on his neck and says, "These marks too. They're not really battle scars, are they?"

"No," Daesung answers quietly. Perhaps she knows more than she lets on. Knows and just doesn't care.

"That's what I thought." She hums, seeming pleased with herself. "And by the way, even though you claim not to, I know you have the knot."

"No, I told you--"

She presses a finger to his lips and gives his swollen cock a squeeze; he quiets obediently.

"You try so hard to be like us," she says, "And you're pretty good at it. You alone manage to be more human than the rest of your pack combined. And I appreciate the effort, but I know better. You're a wolf through and through. You can't hide it."

Daesung bites his lip, suppressing a whimper at the way her hand has gone slack around him.

"But maybe I like that about you," she says. "And maybe my friend was right; I'm too curious for my own good. Though I prefer the term _adventurous_."

She settles over him fully then, and Daesung whimpers as his arousal flares-- the heat between her legs is incredible. She takes his hand and guides it between her spread legs. When she presses his fingers against her folds, her body parting around him wetly, Daesung shakes. It is so easy. The slick from her arousal coats the ends of his fingers, and they glide around the soft opening to her body like it is the most natural thing in the world.

And it is the most natural thing, but it has been so long since Daesung has last experienced a woman's exquisite, wet heat, that he can only hold still under her and let her use him as she pleases.

"You have such nice lips, too," she says, sounding thoughtful. "Maybe another time."

Daesung doesn't think too hard on that. Soon she is teasing another finger in, and then another, until at last she drops his hand and positions the head of his cock at her slick opening. Daesung holds his breath, ready to burst, suspended on a moment in time. He feels like he is standing on a precipice and peering down over the edge as Seunghyun so often loves to do-- always to Daesung's neverending fear and frustration.

_Seunghyun_...

When she sinks down onto him, encasing his cock in heat that is _wet_ and _tight_ and _amazing_ , _oh god_ , Daesung's eyes roll back, his lips falling open, his head tipping back to thud against the shed behind him. His hands tighten on her thighs without his realizing, until she slaps them away, cringing in pain.

"Stop that," she says, and his hands fall away immediately, curling into fists in the loose dirt at his sides. "You're too strong," she says breathlessly. "Just let me do the work, okay?" She moves confidently over him, rising and falling and impaling herself on his cock with such perfect rhythm that Daesung squirms under her, fighting to hold still as she had commanded and failing miserably. Before he knows it his hands are scrabbling in the dirt, his hips pumping up into her slick heat, the slide of her soft insides over his straining cock too tantalizing, too overwhelming to just _ignore_.

Daesung tips his head back, presenting his neck for his dominant partner as he has learned to do, expecting the touch of lips to his skin, the sting of sharp teeth nipping at him. He waits for a touch that never comes. The woman bounces over his lap, gasping out her pleasure yet ignoring his bared neck. It leaves him feeling oddly neglected.

Seunghyun _never_ passes up an opportunity to worship his neck.

_Seunghyun_...

"So, when does it form?" she asks, slowing for a moment to sweep damp hair from her eyes.

"Huh?" Dizzy with pleasure, Daesung is too dazed to think, much less speak.

"You know, your knot? I guess it doesn't happen at the beginning like a dog's, so..."

It's like he's been slapped. To her he is a curiosity, an object to be examined. Daesung suddenly feels like he has stepped in something gross. He needs to get it _off_. The fog of pleasure dissipates like smoke on the wind as it strikes him that this is _wrong_ , he shouldn't be doing this. What was he thinking, letting this happen? Seunghyun would kill if he caught them right now.

He would not kill Daesung, no. He would kill her.

Taking her hips in his strong hands, he lifts the woman off of him, pouring every ounce of his willpower into not slamming her back down on his straining cock. She cries out in surprise and dismay as he hoists her up and drops her on the ground, needing to put distance between them as quickly as possible.

From her place in the dirt, her long skirt still bunched up haphazardly around her hips, the woman glares up at him and hisses, "What's wrong with you?"

She thought he would be into it, into her. For a few wonderful, terrible moments he was.

"You're not a--" _Wolf_ , he wants to say, _You're not a wolf_. But when it comes down to it, that is not even the issue here. Her being a wolf would not make this any more acceptable. Wouldn't make it any more acceptable to Seunghyun. God, what is he going to tell him? His mate will know what he's done the moment he lays eyes on him.

Daesung sags in defeat and gives her the truth. "You're not my pack. It isn't right."

He did not knot her. A tie was not formed. There will be consequences, yes, but Daesung has faith enough in his and Seunghyun's bond that he knows the other wolf will forgive him his lapse in judgment.

The woman gives him a strange look. Filled with anger and hurt and... is that pity he sees?

He has to go. He has to go straight home, straight to Seunghyun with this. The humans will wonder at his sudden disappearance; they like to keep tabs on him when they can even though they pretend not to. If he leaves now, like this, the woman scorned before him might smear his name in front of them all, and there will be nothing he can do to stop it.

Daesung does not care. It is time to retreat.

Hunching over and pulling his coat tighter around his body like a blanket, his softening cock tucked away in too-tight jeans, Daesung stumbles away into the dark in what is sure to be a torturous journey home.

 

\--

 

As Daesung expected, Seunghyun smells the woman on him as soon as he comes in the door-- first on his fingers and then on his cock, his hand disappearing down the front of Daesung's pants and feeling over him roughly. The woman's slick has dried on his skin by now, but her scent remains. Seunghyun gives Daesung a questioning look.

"She forced me" sounds silly to Daesung, not because his partner was a woman-- after all, female wolves are as fierce as they come-- but because she was human. A human forcing a wolf? It's preposterous. Without their weapons humans are _weak_.

And yet, under that woman's spell Daesung had felt like the weak one.

"I'm so sorry, Seunghyun," he says, his voice thick with remorse.

"Do I need to put more marks on you?" Seunghyun says, crowding close to him, the pads of his fingers rubbing thoughtfully over the plethora of scars already at home across Daesung's neck and shoulders.

"It wouldn't matter if you did." Daesung nuzzles into the other wolf apologetically. "She was human. She wouldn't have understood."

_She saw my marks and she didn't care_ , he thinks ruefully. _Your warnings only work on other wolves, Seunghyun._

But just for good measure, Seunghyun does add a few more to the collection, sucking and biting at him with a possessiveness that Daesung is pleased to be on the focus of once again... even as it hurts.

Past the pain of it all, trembling as Seunghyun's canines carve sharp, shallow wounds into him, Daesung grins and says, "Giving me more battle scars?"

"Is that what you're calling them now?" Seunghyun replies, pausing only long enough to speak, his lips never leaving Daesung's skin.

"Not me. You know who. They think I'm a fearsome fighter."

"...They're idiots," Seunghyun says dismissively. "They have no idea."

Daesung pouts. "Hey."

"Not that you aren't a capable fighter," Seunghyun amends quickly. "Hell, compared to them you _are_ fierce. Your little band of humans shouldn't forget that. Maybe they already have." He goes back to work on Daesung's skin. "Maybe you should remind them."

"Why would I do that? It would defeat the purpose of me spending so much time with them..."

Seunghyun pulls back, turning Daesung around and holding him at arm's length, pinning him with a serious stare. "I'm warning you, Daesung," he says solemnly, "Don't get too close."

While Daesung searches for something to say, Seunghyun reaches down and cups Daesung through his jeans. " _This_ was definitely too close, what happened tonight. Next time spill a little blood, will you?"

"What," Daesung says.

"That woman practically gave herself up to you," Seunghyun explains, grinning dangerously. "She might have liked it, bleeding out for you."

Daesung makes a face at him, finding nothing appealing about the idea of tasting a human's blood. He just doesn't have it in him.

Seunghyun returns his scowl with a grin laced with promise, and Daesung knows what awaits him. Seunghyun will not only want to erase all evidence of the woman's presence on him; he will want to replace it with his own.

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

 

\--

 

They end up outside behind the house, the bucket and washrag forgotten as Seunghyun presses Daesung up against a side wall and pushes into him. Daesung gives himself over happily, seeming as eager as Seunghyun to rid himself of that human woman's cloying stench.

They have not been at it for long when Seunghyun hears a creaky door swing open loudly, followed by the quick approach of heavy, angry-sounding footsteps.

"It's always you two," their neighbor says. "Seriously, what the fuck? It's the middle of the night!"

"Oh, hello," Seunghyun greets him calmly. He lets his head fall to one side and gives their neighbor a cool look, his hips continuing to move, his cock pistoning in and out of Daesung's body with quick, short thrusts. Daesung buries his face in his crossed arms as Seunghyun asks, "You got a problem?"

"You wolves really are like animals," the man spits at them. "Fucking outside late at night just like dogs."

"If you don't like it," Seunghyun says against Daesung's heated skin, his tongue slipping out to taste his gathering sweat, "Then just go back inside, old man. No one asked you to come out here." He rolls his hips forward again, smirking as he taunts, "Unless you wanted a show. Is that it?"

The man sets his jaw, his nostrils flaring in outrage. Seunghyun can smell his anger from across the yard. "Wish it was that simple. I can hear you, you know. We live in separate houses but they're right next to each other. Thin walls and all."

Ignoring him, Seunghyun strokes up and down Daesung's side, his hand catching on his thin shirt and rucking it up. Seunghyun had peeled their pants down only as far as they needed to before the urge to reclaim his mate had overcome him. He savors the sight of Daesung's arms braced against the rough wall before him, appreciates how the other wolf pushes back to meet him with every thrust, welcoming Seunghyun's cock deeper into himself.

Seunghyun growls in pained-pleasure as Daesung's tight hole clenches around him, squeezing his cock so savagely it almost fucking _hurts_. They really need to do this standing more often.

"And you! Hey, you. You!" Their neighbor shouts obnoxiously until Daesung lifts his head from where it was pillowed in his arms, clearly irritated. "Can't you keep it down? You got a nice voice and all but I don't wanna hear it all the damn time. _God_."

Seunghyun grunts and gives the warm body under him an especially vigorous thrust, his frustration building under the man's constant bothering. Daesung's head drops back into his folded arms, muffling his cry of pleasure.

No, that won't do. No one-- no _human_ especially-- tells his mate to keep it down and gets away with it.

" _Don't_ fucking tell him what to do," Seunghyun warns, wrapping arms around Daesung. "We'll do what we damn please," he says, feeling wild and rebellious. Already one human has encroached on what is his today. This man needs to sit down and shut up, or Seunghyun will make him eat his own tongue.

"You wolves need to be broken in," the man says. To Seunghyun's ears it sounds an awful lot like a threat, so he ducks low and flashes the man his teeth, his fangs out and glinting in the moonlight, returning his threat with one of his own. The man only glowers at him.

"You'll figure it out. Hopefully sooner than later, if you know what's good for you." With that, the man turns and disappears into his house, the door slamming loudly behind him.

"Seunghyun," Daesung starts to say, tensing under him. "Maybe we should--"

" _No_."

Seunghyun drapes his body over Daesung's and forces all his weight onto him, _into_ him, his cock sinking further still inside his mate's pliant body in the same way his fangs sink into a tender spot at the nape of his neck.

Whatever Daesung was about to say, he forgets it quickly enough.

 

\--

 

Seungri seems to collect human followers. It's as if he has his own little pack over which he gets to be alpha, and Daesung can see that he is loving every second of it.

His band of followers greet him when he and Daesung are out together, wandering the streets aimlessly in the evenings under the slowly setting sun. Sometimes they join the two of them, dashing across the cobblestone and falling into step beside Seungri, eager to share some story with him-- something that they saw happen or something that was overheard. Rarely is it anything important.

Daesung sometimes flinches when they run at him, their sudden appearance at his side startling him badly.

"Sorry about them," Seungri says, grinning at him, not seeming apologetic at all. "They're young and excitable."

Daesung shrugs. Old habits die hard. He no longer fears humans, not like he used to... only humans he does not know.

Seungri is young, but many of Seungri's humans are younger. Some of them look up at the wolf with stars shining in their eyes, and Daesung does not miss it, the way Seungri puffs up in pride at the attention from his... God, they're his _fans_. It's cute. Daesung is happy for him.

It's fine for a time, Seungri's habit of gathering people. But the longer it carries on, the fawning and the persistent hero worship, the more concerned the others grow. The attention is changing Seungri, making him bolder than ever, his behavior daring and reckless like Daesung and the others have never seen before.

And very soon a new concern arises: would Seungri want to break away?

Eventually they confront him, Jiyong leading the charge. Seungri seems surprised... then hurt.

"I'm just having fun," he says, squinting at them in disbelief. "You guys pick on me all the time because I'm the youngest, but I still love you. I would never leave."

"We had to make sure," Youngbae says, "Even if it seems petty."

"No, definitely no, I'm not going anywhere," Seungri assures him. Then he grimaces. "And especially not for some humans. _God_ , you guys, what do you think I am?"

To Daesung's surprise, they let that remark slide. Some things will never truly change, but among the five of them Daesung thinks he senses their established balance of power shifting.

They confronted their omega and he answered. And for them, that is enough.

 

\--

 

"I miss you."

"I'm right here."

"You've changed."

Daesung turns his face into the pillow and makes a sad sound.

"I haven't."

Seunghyun's heated breath on the back of his neck _scalds_ him.

"Tell me then, who are you?"

"I'm Daesung," he murmurs. "I'm your mate."

The arm around Daesung's middle tightens, pushing against his soft belly and tugging him closer. " _What_ are you?"

Daesung groans like he is wounded.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"So, what, you're a human now?" A mouth finds his ear, scorching hot breath washing over the side of his face. It raises the hairs along his arms, a shiver of anticipation working its way through him. "Or are you just a wolf masquerading as one?"

"Shut up. Just because I get along with humans doesn't mean I am one," Daesung says, the words sounding hollow and weak even to him.

"Could have fooled me." Seunghyun rolls away from him. "Daesung, what do you want?"

"Why are you even asking me this," Daesung says after a moment, shaken.

"Someone has to."

"You're being ridiculous." Behind him, between them, Daesung's tail twitches. "You know what I am."

He falls asleep to the sound of Seunghyun's silence ringing in his ears.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: [Let It Burn](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDaDdGZ1hQNWpKM1E) (Seunghyun)


	5. Chapter 5

They just will not _leave him alone._

Though it pains him to do so-- hurts his pride, whatever small amount of it he has-- Daesung takes to cutting down lesser traveled paths, avoiding the main street on his way home from work more and more as the days go by, as the sightings of his tormentors increase. Though they are often there, watching him as he passes-- always _watching--_ they cease their heckling when even one of his packmates are with him.

It is when he is alone that the harassment resumes. Daesung is quickly tiring of their games, and worse, grows weary of their names for him.

Wolf. Dog. Mutt. _Bitch_.

Daesung struggles over what to do, is at a loss for how to handle them this far into their continued harassment. A seed of fear planted in him sprouts and grows with every sighting, its roots taking hold and constricting him, paralyzing him with inescapable fear when he sees or even smells the men.

They bring their female dog around sometimes and Daesung eyes the animal warily. She seems tame enough, idling on the end of her leash wound from rope, a collar of the same material fitted snugly around her neck.

Daesung does not like dogs. It shames him to admit it given his lupine heritage, but he is actually a bit afraid of them.

The men see him looking and yell out hurtful things like, "Whoa! She's off-limits, man," and shuffle the dog behind them as if to protect her from his prying eyes. Other times they do their best to taunt and provoke him, nudging the bitch toward him and shouting out suggestively, "See something you like, wolf?"

Daesung hates when they say things like that most of all. Their constant ridicule is almost enough to make him take back the advice he gave Seungri, that it is better to stay strong and ignore the few bad apples.

Wolves and humans should be able to coexist, nothing about his belief in that ideal has changed. But how is it supposed to happen when there exist people like this who are so determined to make it so hard?

 

\--

 

Some nights they help each other onto the roof and gaze up at the sky, admiring the moon. Despite everything that is different here, everything that has changed since they came here with little more than a sliver of hope in their starved hearts, nothing about the moon has changed. The brilliant light reflecting down on them is the very same face they looked to for comfort when they were living wild.

From the dark streets below a sound floats up to them, rising in pitch the longer it carries on.

Howling. And not from dogs-- from _humans_. Seunghyun curls his lip in distaste. Humans howling at the moon. It's audacious. It's absurd. Seunghyun wants to drop down there and put a swift end to it.

"We don't howl at the moon," Seungri says bitterly. "Those bastards know that by now."

"They're just ignorant," Youngbae adds with his usual wisdom.

"No, they mean for it to hurt," Jiyong states. It is not ignorance that has their human neighbors tipping their heads back and wailing at the sky, knowing the wolves nearby are listening. It is intentional cruelty, and all of them know it.

"Wolves have inhabited this city for many years now. We're not really news to them. They are wrong about us only because they want to be."

Daesung says nothing, only stares intently at the moon like he is memorizing its surface.

They can see the city walls from their house; from up on the rooftop the dark shadows of the walls are more ominous than ever, impossible to ignore. At the sight of the walls looming over them Seunghyun feels caged in. He knows his packmates feel the same. Most days they keep their curtains drawn, yearning for the sun but despising the sight of other homes, wood and straw and brick made of mud... and beyond them, those damnable walls.

Living all his life so far with the world before him, fields and streams free to explore, flatlands and hills stretching out ahead of him as far as his eyes can see... this mild claustrophobia is new to him.

The walls are unlike anything he has ever known. Seunghyun has known mountains and has loved them, how he felt sheltered beneath them, safe within in their valleys. But the walls surrounding this city are not like mountains in the distance, mountains that he could climb and explore to his heart's content if the urge arose. To Seunghyun they are little more than a barrier, designed more for keeping their inhabitants in than for keeping outsiders, well, out.

He feels trapped. And a wolf like Seunghyun does not take well to being trapped.

The incessant howling in the streets below soon trails off, the scuffing of feet fading into the night.

Seunghyun rolls his shoulders and cracks his knuckles. "Too bad," he says. "I was just about to go down there and give them a piece of my mind."

Still Daesung says nothing, and Seunghyun chances a look at the other wolf. His mate's silence unsettles him. Before coming here they would never have allowed that kind of insult go unpunished. Here though... Seunghyun's hands are tied.

Though they tolerate them, the humans here clearly have little love for wolves. One day at a time they begin to understand why the wolf population here is so small.

Jiyong used to tell them that the moon and stars were dimmer from inside the cities. Harder to see over the smoke from the humans' fires, the night sky in all its vastness obscured by too many buildings in too small a space, the humans building _up_ when they can no longer build _out_.

But Seunghyun thinks Jiyong must have been wrong all along; their leader is not infallible. The stars seem just as bright in here as they did out there, their light reaching and comforting him as assuredly as they did when the five of them were living wild. Suffocating under the weight of this new life that he does not want, Seunghyun gives himself up to the night, turning himself over to the guardian moon and a sparkling sea of stars.

Their radiance reminds him to _just breathe, it will all be okay_.

He needs this, this sign that while he and his packmates are undergoing a transformation-- and Seunghyun does not love the way some of them are heading-- some things around them will never change. Here the stars shine down on him as brilliantly as they always have, and probably always will.

Maybe, Seunghyun thinks, Jiyong was never talking about stars at all.

 

\--

 

The day comes when Daesung's hopeful outlook shatters.

He can't say he did not see this coming.

They jump him. For Daesung, it is a perfectly ordinary day right up until the precise moment he hears a scuffling of feet  behind him, the soles of several sets of shoes slapping against the stone. Without thought he moves to duck, spinning around to face what he instinctively knows to be his attackers-- his attackers-- but it is too late, his natural reflexes dulled by his split second of indecision.

 _This is it_ , he thinks fiercely, _it's finally happening_.

They pile onto him and Daesung struggles wildly while they pull him from the street, their arms restraining him like vices, his arms wrenched back painfully and his legs steadied under him. He pitches to one side and then the other, desperately hoping to throw them.

There are too many. Daesung is _stronger than them_ and he will _fight_... but he knows he is outnumbered and outweighed.

As they drag him away-- away to _where_ he doesn't want to find out-- Daesung catches sight of other humans watching from the sidelines, their eyes wide with, what, fear? Curiosity?

Guilt?

Not normally one to make a racket, Daesung does his worst this time; he snarls and growls and shouts and shrieks at the top of his lungs, his powerful voice sure to carry far.

Yet through it all, not one person comes to his aid. In fact, the more noise he makes, the more doors he sees closing, the more heads he sees ducking away from the scene, wanting nothing to do with the spectacle unfolding before them.

He feels terribly betrayed.

At last Daesung _howls_ , a last-ditch effort to call on his pack, far away but always attentive to the cries of one of their own. His voice is strong. At least one of them is sure to hear.

A hand seals itself over his mouth, silencing his desperate howl almost as soon as it began; Daesung open his jaw and bites down on the hand _hard_. He doesn't let up, feeling suddenly fearless with surging adrenaline, not even as the owner of the hand tries to yank it away; his wounds tear open further under the power of Daesung's relentless bite. Daesung's mouth fills with blood, and Daesung decides that a human's blood is every bit as revolting as he imagined it would be.

One of them strikes him over the head hard and it stuns him enough that his bite grip releases, the bloody hand falling from his mouth. A piece of cloth replaces it, stuffed in his mouth and muffling any cries for help, effectively ending his pleas. Daesung pants harshly through his nose as a sudden terror grips him: terror at being totally silenced.

If he cannot cry for his packmates' help, he will have to save himself.

He thrashes in their grip, tossing them this way and that, slowly their progress until, after what feels like an eternity of struggling, Daesung finds himself in a secluded area-- some kind of dark back alley crowded between old buildings in disrepair, cracked walls covered in vines ready to crumble and broken shingles threatening to tumble from the rooftops at the slightest disturbance.

This place has not felt a human's touch in too long. They are alone.

With their combined strength they bind his hands across his back and bend him over a wood crate, its planks old but sturdy enough to hold him even as he kicks and flails, needing to be free of his restraints. Daesung fights them all the way down, and even once there, even with the crate's sharp edges digging into his sharp hipbones and soft belly, he retaliates tirelessly.

They tie his hands at the wrists, rendering his claws practically useless, but still he lashes out at them when they circle around behind him, snaps at them with razor-edged teeth fully extended when they go near his face, refuses to give in.

He submits to his alpha. He submits to his senior packmates. He submits to Seunghyun, his _mate_. He will not submit to these monsters.

While his head is turned the other way, one of them darts in and grabs him by the hair; with an agonizing grip the man holds Daesung's head in place while another wraps a circle of rope around his neck, pulling it tight. He can't see it, but it takes him only a moment to detect a familiar scent in the rope's fibers, something his sensitive wolf's nose recognizes.

This is the collar their female dog had worn the day they paraded her before him.

A tug on the collar has him turning toward the source of it-- he fights it, but the coarse rope digs into his skin and it _fucking hurts_ \-- and he sees that they have connected the collar to a longer rope, its end clutched tightly in the hands of his attackers.

Collared and leashed.

It hits Daesung like a sucker punch to the gut, and at last he hangs his head in shame.

Once they have him suitably subdued, they yank the ball of cloth out of his dry mouth. Daesung winces and works his jaw to relieve the ache. "Why are you doing this?" he cries.

"Are you really asking us that?" he hears from above, his face turned to the ground.

"I've done nothing to you," Daesung says. "I don't-- I don't understand."

"Beg and plead all you want," the man says. "It won't help you. This has been a long time coming, wolf, and nothing you do will make this any better for you."

Daesung cranes his head up to look at them; he immediately wishes he hadn't, the disgust and loathing on their faces cutting him more deeply than anything they have done to him so far.

"How many times do we have to tell you before you get it through your thick head? You wolves are fucking unnatural-- part human, part animal? Your kind doesn't belong here. _You_ don't belong here."

Daesung bites his lip and says nothing, conditioned by now to let their insults slide. What can he do against them right now, anyway?

"He doesn't even try to deny it," one of them scoffs. "Look at this guy, he doesn't even defend himself." The man leans in and says, shaking his head, "You're the strangest wolf I've ever known."

"You don't know me," Daesung growls, his voice rough and scratchy from the earlier abuse.

"I know one thing," the man says almost serenely, and his tone frightens Daesung terribly. When they tug down his pants he know what is coming.

So that's how it's going to be.

Daesung understands this, at least, has been through this before. He can-- he can get through this. He will survive this.

"All this time you just wanted to fuck me?" he says in disbelief. " _That's_ what this is about? Fine," he spits, "Just... just get it over with already." So he can go home to his pack and nurse his wounds, forget this ever happened. He will live to see another day, and that is what matters.

"What?" Their faces twist in revulsion. "Ugh, _no_. Like we would ever," they say, almost in unison. "Seriously, gross."

What?

"No," one of them says. "We have other plans for you. Plans that I think you'll like better."

"Just let me _go_ ," Daesung says, dropping his voice low, aiming for threatening. Intimidation is not his preferred tactic and he does not know how convincing he is, but he has to at least _try_. He has to try everything, anything. "I could kill you all, you know."

"But you won't!" They laugh. "We've seen you going around trying so hard to be like... well, like us. Like a human. That's real funny. You've lost your ferocity... if you ever had any to begin with."

Daesung feels his face heating. Maybe Seunghyun was right, after all. He should not have let the humans lose their fear of him.

"What's worse, you went and crossed a line," one of them says with a dangerous calm. "You overstepped your bounds, and now here we are."

Daesung blinks up at them. "What?"

"You touched something that didn't belong to you." The man's lip curls in barely concealed fury as he says, "She's _mine_. You put your filthy paws on her and you _soiled_ her."

For one crazy moment Daesung thinks they are still talking about the dog. Then it hits him, what-- _who--_ the man is talking about. He sputters. " _She_ came onto _me_."

The woman from that night.

"Sure," the man says. "Like I believe that. She came home fucking crying to me about it."

"What?" Daesung says, dumbfounded. Are they even discussing the same person? "No, that can't be-- she started it, I swear! She-- I didn't mean to--"

He chokes on the rest, feeling increasingly foolish with every word, but desperate to be believed. He knows he is not entirely without fault here, but does he really deserve all this for-- for what, a quick fuck that he did not even finish or really even want?

"I'm _sorry_ ," Daesung says in a fierce whisper. "I'm sorry, I am! I didn't know she was yours."

The man watches him with an icy expression, mulling over his apology. His lack of expression frightens Daesung more than if his anger was a fiery rage blazing across his face.

Daesung hangs his head again and waits. Hopes. Prays.

The man barks out a laugh, an appalling sound. "You know what? It doesn't even matter who started it. You might be telling the truth, who knows. Who cares? She is kind of a slut anyway," he says nonchalantly. "Either way, you've forgotten your fucking place, wolf. I'm here to remind you."

Daesung sags in crippling defeat and the man turns back to his friends and says, "Bring him over."

He hears the shuffling of a new set of feet through the dirt, the clicking of claws as four feet-- no, four _paws--_ make their way nearer.

A dog? Why?

Afraid to look, Daesung peeks out at the animal through the dark curtain of his hair. It is a big dog, same breed as their bitch. This one is male, the sheath under its body impossible to miss. The dog's long tongue lolls out of its mouth as it takes in the scene, its dark eyes landing on him with interest. Daesung struggles anew against his bindings, under the men’s weight crushing him to the crate, a new kind of fear lending him renewed strength.

He _doesn't like dogs_.

The man crouches before Daesung and holds a vial of something up to his nose. It smells foul, but it's clear what it is right away; his nose scrunches up in disgust. "Smell this? You recognize it? Fresh from a bitch in heat. Yeah, you know the one. You might remember her, the way you eyed her up."

Daesung coughs as he brings the vial closer. He can smell pheromones sometimes, faintly, but not like this. This just smells like _piss_.

He tries to turn away, but the man grabs the collar around his throat and tugs him back into place., forcing his face back to the foul-smelling liquid. He wrinkles his nose in disgust and holds his breath.

They point to the male dog, "This here is her... what would you call him? Her boyfriend? No, what's that word you wolves like to use? _Mate?_ Yeah, this big guy is her mate."

He cannot bear to hear that word coming from their foul mouths; they don't understand what it means to him. By speaking it they _defile_ it.

"He's already had her plenty of times. Got some good pups out of her too. Now he'd like to have you."

He takes the vial over to the dog and lowers it to the animal's wet nose. The dog's tongue withdraws into its mouth as it sniffs with interest at the vial of urine, and fear and revulsion ripple through Daesung as he sees the tip of the dog's penis emerge from its sheath.

The man turns and shoots Daesung a look full of terrible promise.

"We know what you and that other wolf friend of yours get up to together," he says, sneering. "Everyone does, the way you _howl_ like a bitch in heat when he's in you."

Daesung feels like he's been shot; he wishes he had been. He would take that over this. He goes cold all over, falling into shock at what is unfolding before him, what is about to happen to him.

Yet at the same time Daesung's face burns, a dreadful shame washing over him and settling in the pit of his stomach like a stone... and he doesn't understand why. There is no shame in what he and Seunghyun, his mate, do together.

...Right?

The man returns to Daesung, circling around behind him, and tips the vial. Daesung flinches as its contents hits his ass, some of the liquid splattering across his skin but most of it running down between his cheeks. Then, for good measure, the man bends down and smears the urine over his skin, his fingers dipping in without care and slathering it up and down his crack, coating him thoroughly. Daesung jolts forward at the casual touch against such an intimate place-- with his bare hand no less.

A hand cups his balls. "Think we should we do something about these?"

"Nah," he hears. "Just leave 'em. This will be enough." Daesung's head is wrenched back by the hair again, forcing him to look up into the man's hideous face, his grip like a thousand needles stabbing into his scalp all at once. "After this you won't go putting your dick where it doesn't belong, am I right?"

"Please," Daesung says, no longer above simply begging. "Please, just let me go. I won't bother you. I'll stay out of your way from now on. I'll... I'll..."

He dissolves into pleas, but even as the words spill from his lips he doesn't know what he can possibly say that will stop this from happening. Their cruelty is unstoppable, their hardened hearts immovable.

They pull his tail aside roughly, leading their dog behind him. Tears spring to Daesung's eyes. He tries to twist around to see what's happening, but they yank on the rope again until he is facing forward once more; it is _fire_ around his neck, a necklace of hot coals pressing into his skin every time they tug on it.

Soon he feels the dog's horrid, wet nose at his thighs, poking between his cheeks in interest, sniffing at the cold urine coating his skin, wetting his hole.

 _Oh god._ Everything in him clenches up in a steadfast refusal to allow this to happen to him. _No, no,_ **_no_**.

"No, don't, _don't_ ," Daesung sobs, not to the animal that could never understand him but to the horrible men who use the poor creature to do their gruesome bidding. He hears them murmuring from above and behind him.

"Wonder if we might get pups out of him too."

" _Please, no_ ," he chokes out.

"No, man, there's no way, he's a guy."

"Let me go, I'm begging you. I'm not--" _I'm not what you think I am, I'm_ **_not!_**

"Who knows? He's part _wolf_. We don't know what these freaks are capable of."

In his chest Daesung's heart thuds painfully, his pulse loud as a drum in his ears. He whines long and loud and thrashes against his restraints, only hurting himself more but beyond caring.

"What do you think they'd look like, anyway? Human? Dog? Or something in-between?"

He isn't the animal they believe him to be. He is just as human as any of them, as human as _all_ of them. He might even be _more_ human than these-- these _monsters_. _Devils_.

The dog mounts him and Daesung cries out suddenly, a bolt of fear racing through him like a lightning strike. The feel of its fur as it hunches over his back makes Daesung's skin _crawl_. The dog moves into position atop him, anchoring itself with paws tucked in against his sides, scrabbling at his narrow hips. He tries to wrench himself away, the crate leaving splinters in his skin as he surges atop it, tears falling in earnest and blinding him, but there is nowhere for him to go. Not forward, not to the side, and certainly not _back_.

He feels it then. Hard and thin, the dog's-- _no--_

" _No_ ," Daesung chokes, dropping his head even as the collar circling his neck strangles him, the coarse rope rubbing his skin raw. This isn't happening, _this isn't happening._

A few false starts later and the dog's cock penetrates him, the narrow tip forcing its way inside him and sparking pain that reaches all the way into Daesung's heart, like branding the memory of it into him forever.

"Oh, I think it's in," he hears dimly as he sobs around his fear and revulsion. _Get it out, get it_ **_out_** , everything in him screams.

But his pleas are ignored, as the dog settles over him, its underside flush against his ass-- and then Daesung feels a sudden swelling inside him, an all-too-familiar hardness beginning to bulge against his hole from its place inside him.

The dog is _knotting_ him. He gags, tasting burning bile on the back of his tongue and salty tears on the tip. He wants to _die_.

Then they yank the dog off of him abruptly, laughing as Daesung squeezes his knees together in shame.

"Sorry," the one man says, the worst of the bunch in Daesung's eyes, his gleeful cruelty seeming limitless. "I know you were probably expecting more, but we don't have a lot of time. Can't let the knot form and tie you two together, you know." A thought seems to strike him suddenly. "You have one of those too, don't you? _God_. It's just disgusting."

The dog was not on him-- was not _in_ him-- for long, but the damage is done. Daesung feels sullied, stained, unable to move as they lift him by the arms and drop him in a heap on the ground. There he curls into a ball and, wracked with tremors, clings tooth and nail to the last vestiges of his sanity.

One man kneels beside him, laying a hand on him in a mockery of concern, pretending to care for the wounded wolf after violating him so thoroughly. Haven't they done enough? Aren't they through with him yet?

"Do you see it now?" the man asks in a frighteningly gentle voice. "Don't you see that you're nothing more than an animal? Just like this mutt here." He shakes the dog where he holds it by the collar, fingers tucked beneath the braided rope.

Over the cage of his own arms, Daesung sees the dog's cock still hanging out of its sheathe, wet and bright red and... at the base, where its knot had just begun to swell, the skin there unnaturally bulbous.

That had been in him. His insides rebel at the remembered sensation, his stomach churning. Daesung is going to be sick, and soon. That seems to be happening a lot these days.

" _Answer me_."

Daesung shakes his head, dizzy but still defiant. No, they are wrong, they are _wrong_. He is not an animal. He is _more than that._

The man frowns down at him. Clearly it was not the answer he wanted, and it gives Daesung the smallest measure of satisfaction. They might break his body, but his spirit he will not give up so easily.

Behind him, someone grabs his tail roughly and pulls on it so hard it jerks him backwards-- it is connected to his spine, after all-- and Daesung yelps. It's fucking _painful_. Then the man crouched over him pulls out a blade, brandishing it so that Daesung gets a good, long look at it.

His heart flutters in further panic at the sight of it; it does not even look all that sharp.

"Alright. Alright, fine. After all of this, you still want to play at being human?" he says, and the person gripping his tail straightens it out behind him, pulling it taut. "Fine. Let us help you out."

They're going to take his tail.

The man with the knife leans in close, lifting the blade, and without thinking Daesung whips around and lashes out at the one behind him, his restraints falling away in shreds where his claws had been scraping at the rope. Narrowly avoiding the swipe of his talons, the man drops his tail and backs away, tripping over his feet as he goes.

There will be _blood_ , and it will not be his.

He Daesung whips around and strikes savagely at the man with the knife, his claws catching on skin and getting him good across the face, the cuts deep and severe; he drops his weapon with an agonized shriek of surprise. Another hauls back on the rope around Daesung's neck, the noose squeezing and choking him... but he fights anyway, fights them every step of the way with every last scrap of his strength, pulling on all his reserves now that he has his hands and legs under him again.

They have taken too much from him already. They will not take this from him too.

"Shit, his _claws_ ," the man who leads them screeches in pain, clutching at his ruined face as the gashes Daesung gave him gush blood down the contours of his face and splash onto the dirt. "You _fucking animal_."

Daesung bares his teeth at them, both his upper and lower canines fully extended, as long and deadly as they can be, and forces the fiercest snarl he can muster up and out of his throat. It must be the most horrible sound that has ever come out of him, and a strange thought strikes him: how can this terrible sound come from the same place in him that produces such beautiful song?

The dog quickly grows agitated, acting up and making a great deal of noise until soon it is barking loudly. The men wrangle the animal back, glancing around themselves fearfully-- fearing discovery.

But why? No one had come to help him before.

Still overtaken by fear and fury, Daesung's launches himself at his tormentors with claws and jaws wide open-- and they flee. He watches them go with a ferocious light in his eyes, watches until they disappear from sight and don't return.

And just like that, he is alone.

The rush of adrenaline pours out of him and Daesung collapses in a heap on the ground, weak and quaking in fear and pain and overwhelming _shame_. His delayed nausea finally catches up to him and he is violently ill, his body rioting in the face of everything that he has just undergone, every horror he has just endured... and just escaped.

Clumsily, he struggles with the rough collar around his neck, frantically fighting to remove it. He gets his claws under it tears it apart. It hits the ground in shreds. He kicks the collar and knife away and curls into a tight ball beside his vomit, his lower end throbbing in pain, his neck ringed in abrasions, the splinters in his belly smarting and his head aching where his attackers had struck him near the start of it all. His tail hurts him terribly as well. A handful of hairs had been ripped out at the roots when he spun around to save it, and tiny droplets of blood have welled up in the wound.

Alone at last in his grief, Daesung weeps like he hasn't in years-- no, like he never has before. He wails loudly, uncontrollably, unable to breathe at times through the flood of tears and mucus. He did not know he was capable of so much raw emotion. It alarms him. It feels like he is _dying_.

He tried to be like them. To act like them. To fit in and be one of them. But even then they rejected him.

He tried _so hard_.

Daesung isn't... He isn't one of them. And now he cannot seem to control it, this new _thing_ rising in him. That he is not only ashamed and humiliated, utterly decimated, but that he is now so afraid of what these people can do to him.

Humans are worse than any animal. He doesn't want to be one of them after all.

 

\--

 

Violent encounters with wolves always bear the threat of bodily injury. But wolves are often straightforward creatures with a simple purpose. The agony of a wolf's bite, if it does not kill you, is short-lived enough.

Humans, however, inflict pain that lasts. How they do it, Daesung does not know. They strike like vipers, injecting venom into the wound, venom that works its way inside and spreads like an infection. That is the lesson Daesung has learned today.

A wolf in the wild will sever an infected limb to spare its life, chewing and snapping it off with its own jaws if that is what it takes to survive.

But Daesung does not have that option. The pain of his infection comes to him as if from a phantom limb. There is nothing to remove, no flesh to amputate, no puncture marks to lead him to the source of his suffering.

But he feels the pain regardless. It is there. It is real.

 

\--

 

Daesung stops by the river that runs through the city on his way home. As he stands there on the shore, stripped down to nothing, his bare toes just touching the water's edge, he loses himself to his musings. Reaching inside himself, he finds the remnants of his courage as soft and slippery as the mud between his toes, impossible to grasp. All his strength is sapped from him, leaving him nothing with which to ward off strange thoughts.

He does not want this body of his anymore. He wants to shed his body like a snake sheds its skin and leave it there in the river. Wants to lower it into the water and let it sink into the deep, out of sight, so he can forget what has been done to it.

He feels contaminated. It is an unfamiliar feeling to Daesung, who has always found little shame in the carnal things wolves get up to. For his kind fighting and fucking are simply a way of life.

As a wolf, especially as a submissive one, Daesung is no stranger to forced encounters. Once the deed was done, so long as he was not badly wounded, as long as he emerged from the ordeal unscathed-- well, mostly unscathed-- able to physically pick himself up and carry on, rarely was the memory of it worth dwelling on. Such is the life of a wolf in the wild, the world he was born into a wonderful, terrible place.

This is different somehow, eating away at him in a way Daesung cannot explain. He feels wounded, but... Where is the wound? He cannot mend something he is unable to see with his eyes or touch with his hands.

He is suddenly afraid of it, this body he inhabits. The men had insisted Daesung was an animal. Now that he has had an actual animal inside him, does that make him one too?

Daesung washes himself meticulously, immersing himself in the river's chilled waters and vigorously scrubbing away all evidence of his struggle. The stink of the bitch's urine was strong and had burned his sensitive nose; even now he can still smell it, the stench embedded in his airways. He is gripped by a sudden fear that no amount of washing will remove her reek from him.

Seunghyun will know the moment he walks through the door what has happened this evening, just as he knew when that woman had...

Fuck, Seunghyun will know. The others will know. _Everyone_ will know.

But they will not see the wound inside him, will not know how grievously he hurts. Ancient instinct warns Daesung that he must do everything in his power to keep it that way. He will hide that he is wounded, cannot let anyone catch wind of his weakness-- not wolves, not humans, not even his packmates... Not even his mate.

No one can ever know. Daesung cannot be weak; if he wishes to continue on he must be strong.

After all, the strong prey on the weak, and in spite of everything he has been through in his short life so far, Daesung still wants to live, damnit.

He wallows in the shallows for what feels like hours while his clothes dry slowly in the late evening sun, its rays weak so far into the day. He does not cry. No more tears fall; he has none left in him. Daesung's eyes are as dry as his skin is wet when he climbs up the river bank, his muddied feet squashing into the spongy dirt with every step away from the great body of water at his back. Slowly, carefully, he shrugs on his clothes, which are still damp and cling uncomfortably to his skin.

As he pulls on his coat, the collar brushes over the raw skin where there had been a rope fastened around his neck. He winces. With an awful, sinking feeling, Daesung accepts that there are some wounds he cannot hope to hide, not from his packmates and certainly not from his mate. He will have to think of a plausible explanation, and fast.

At the thought of deceiving Seunghyun, his stomach twists up in a ball of anxiety and dread.

 _It's better this way_ , Daesung tells himself. _Better for both of us. For all of us._ He might tell Seunghyun eventually. But it cannot be now. It's too painful. It's too soon.

He heads home.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: [Take It All Away](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDRUlzVm9wcEk3cGM) (Daesung)


	6. Chapter 6

"So there was this little girl..."

"Little girl," Seunghyun repeats, his voice positively dripping with skepticism.

"...and she wanted to make me a necklace..."

"A _necklace?_ Out of what, barbed wire?"

"Rope," Daesung says shortly. "Really coarse rope. I mean, what else was there for her to use? She was cute. And so excited. Too excited, probably." He grins sheepishly. "She might have pulled on it a little too hard."

"Yeah, a little," Seunghyun agrees emphatically.

"I mean, she was practically hanging off of it." Daesung embellishes his tale, trying to paint a vivid image in the other wolf's mind. His fib will seem more plausible if he provides Seunghyun with a detailed explanation.

"And you just, what-- you just _let_ her?" He taps the bright pink abrasions circling Daesung's neck, the skin around them badly inflamed, and Daesung flinches away. "These look severe."

"I didn't want to hurt her."

Seunghyun gawks at him and Daesung holds his mate's gaze steady. He feels fucking awful lying to him like this, and it is is such a flimsy excuse, but if he can just stick to it then maybe...

In the end Seunghyun only shakes his head at him, a bit sadly, and hugs him close. "You really are too kind for your own good."

"And you love that about me," Daesung says through a smug grin. He fits himself against Seunghyun and murmurs, "And anyway, it's nothing new. I'm used to marks on my neck."

"Not like these." Seunghyun touches his lips to to the abused skin in a kiss so gentle Daesung can't be sure he even feels it.

"And what about your tail?" Seunghyun moves on to the next item, taking Daesung's tail in hand tenderly, stroking over the fur. "Did your little human friend pull your tail too hard, too?"

The agony of having his tail yanked out behind him with enough force to pull him backwards through the dirt flashes back to Daesung; he can't prevent the way his body shudders at the remembered pain. "Yeah," he says meekly.

"Shit, Daesung," Seunghyun exclaims, turning his tails over. "This looks bad. What the hell?"

Daesung looks away. "Kids," he chuckles, "They're stronger than they look."

Some of the hairs on his tail were torn out in the struggle. The bald spot is barely noticeable, largely concealed by the longer hairs around it, but it still stings terribly. Seunghyun's curious fingers find the patch of bare skin and stroke over it.

"You need to take better care of yourself," Seunghyun scolds softly. "Stand up for yourself from time to time, okay?"

Daesung just nods and scrounges up a weak smile. Scum. He feels like absolute scum for leading his mate astray, but he isn't ready to reveal the truth. Not right now. Not yet. Maybe never.

Seunghyun coos at him and strokes over his tail, normally a soothing gesture, but this time it smarts and has Daesung squirming in discomfort. "You poor thing. Let me kiss it better."

Daesung goes rigid all over as his mate's warm palm pets over the base of his tail, and from there, smooths over the curve of his ass. Suddenly he lurches away, tearing himself from Seunghyun's grasp.

_Shit_ , Daesung thinks at the look of surprise and hurt Seunghyun turns on him. He had not meant to do that. Since when did he have so little control over his own body?

Before Seunghyun can say a word Daesung drops to his knees on the floor, hooking his fingers in the waistband of Seunghyun's pants and underwear and pulling them down with him as he goes.

"I don't need you to kiss it better," he says, peering up through his lashes at Seunghyun. "All I need is _this_."

He doesn't wait to see how Seunghyun reacts. Does not need to see his face to know how his expression of hurt morphs into one of delight. His swift arousal is reply enough. Daesung mouths down the trail of dark hair that leads to the other's sex, Seunghyun's cock filling with blood and rising to meet Daesung's lips even before he has reached it. It does not take much for Seunghyun to be ready for him.

Daesung loves this part of his mate-- loves the things he can do to it and the things it does to him, the pleasure it brings them both. That much has not changed.

He just... He needs a little more time before he is ready to have it inside of him again, filling him below, pushing inside his hole in a way he cannot control. With his hands cupping Seunghyun's slim hips, holding him firmly in place as he fits his dirty mouth over the head of his red, swollen cock, Daesung thinks, _this_ he can control.

This he can use to throw Seunghyun off his trail.

Daesung sets to work unraveling his mate with his mouth.

 

\--

 

He tries his hardest, but he cannot put his mate off forever, and soon enough Daesung finds himself in a familiar position.

Daesung registers the swelling of Seunghyun's knot inside him, an expanding pressure as the base of his mate's engorged cock grows larger still, a hard ball filling out and plugging up Daesung from the inside. Normally he would push back onto the knot, loving it, needing it, wanting it. It feels fucking amazing, the pressure of the other wolf's knot _just right_ against his stretched-wide hole, setting his nerves alight with pleasure. Furthermore, Seunghyun locking the two of them together in an inseparable tie is, to Daesung, the most intimate act they can accomplish between them.

But tonight the knot feels all wrong. Daesung's gut clenches up in apprehension, and before he realizes it his body is in motion, not pushing back but _pulling away_.

Of course, the movement only drags Seunghyun forward with him as it always does when they are joined like this. Daesung starts to panic, the knot still rounding out inside him; he reaches around and shoves at Seunghyun's shoulder.

"Get off," he says in a voice laced with distress. "Get off me. Pull out!"

"What?" Seunghyun asks, bewildered. "Why?" When he does not budge Daesung pushes at him again. Seunghyun clings to him, his hands going to his hips, and Daesung feels the phantom sensation of furred forelegs gripping him in much the same way.

"Just-- _fuck--_ "

Daesung lunges forward, his whole body escaping and his hips hastening away from the hard thing inside him. He separates from Seunghyun with a disgusting, squelching sound-- not especially strange, but in this moment it makes his stomach _churn_.

Behind him Seunghyun curses. "What the _hell_ , Daesung," he groans in pain, and Daesung knows that his sudden parting has probably hurt him, too. "What was that for?"

"Sorry, I'm sorry," Daesung says, breathing hard. His hole radiates pain, little tendrils of fire licking through his lower body, punishing him for what he just did. The tie is not meant to be broken.

Still, he feels better, his abrupt anxiety calming, his sudden panic subsiding as he realizes that he doesn't want to be knotted. He suddenly can't bear the thought of having _that_ in him again.

Daesung rolls onto his side and tucks his legs up, his heels snug against the backs of his thighs. Seunghyun watches him with eyes full of pain, some anger, and worst of all, betrayal. Under his piercing gaze Daesung feels himself shriveling up, suffocating under not only his own guilt, but the crushing weight of the question in his mate's eyes.

Daesung _can't tell him_ , his reticence a physical barrier to the communication that needs to occur between them. Try as he might, he cannot force the words out, his throat closing around the sound every time.

Why? Why is this so hard? He has always been capable of telling Seunghyun anything, anything at all, as long as he set his mind to it.

Seunghyun stretches out behind him, for once keeping his hands to himself, while Daesung curls into a tight ball and loses himself to his thoughts. Humans don't have knots. Only animals have knots. Those men, those horrible men, had insisted he was an animal... but he isn't. No matter what they say or do to him, Daesung is not and never will be an animal.

Or is he? Could he be? After everything, how could he possibly be human? Those men were wrong about many things, were certainly wrong about _him_... But they might have been right about a few things. It does not matter how he yearns for it; Daesung thinks he cannot possibly be human after all.

So which is it?

Human, animal... Daesung can't remember the world ever being so black and white before. Before, when it didn't matter what he was, when there was no price on his identity. Here the answer he seeks so desperately is costing him too dearly, robbing him of everything he thought he knew about himself.

His head aches, the strain of questioning his existence for perhaps the very first time in his life too great to bear. His foundation is shaken, what he believed to be stone turning to sand beneath his feet. He and the others have always been content to exist as something in-between, something undefined, something uniquely them. Surely it was not so long ago, Daesung thinks, yet he can hardly remember...

What are werewolves, really? What are his packmates? What is Seunghyun? What is _he?_

 

\--

 

Daesung trudges onward, his feet taking him down learned paths until he finds himself in a familiar place. A bright fire roars invitingly, and all around it the people mingle, catching up on the week's news, announcing upcoming events, and delivering gossip. This he takes in with tired eyes, blinking away fatigue from eyes that have not seen sleep in several nights.

Daesung liked it here once, not long ago. Felt almost at home before the fire, surrounded on all sides by smiling faces. He felt like he fit in, like he was fast becoming one of them.

Now, though, he feels more like an outsider than ever, less like these humans than even when he first began turning up to their gatherings. They turn their eyes on him and it feels like they _know_. Like word has gotten around, the gory details of what was done to him spreading like wildfire through the neighborhood. Maybe even through the whole city, right up to its walls. After all, gossip travels.

"Daesung!" he hears a voices voices yell all at once, and nearly jumps a foot in the air. "Where have you been? You missed last week."

"Sorry," he says, scratching at the back of his head, an old nervous habit. "Wasn't feeling well."

An older woman approaches him and lays hands on both his arms, her face open and friendly. Her delicate hands are so unlike the last human hands that had touched him, the memory of their hateful touch seared into his skin. "Oh, you poor thing. But I thought wolves didn't get sick?"

Daesung forces a smile onto his face for her sake. "No, we do. It's just... uncommon."

She clucks at him in concern. "Well, no matter. You seem alright enough now," she states, looking him up and down.

He plucks nervously at the scarf tied neatly around his neck, little more than a scrap of fabric to cover his healing wounds, and hates how he fidgets under her scrutiny. He cannot stand her inspecting him like this, however well-intentioned.

What if she sees past what he tries to be to what he really is?

Daesung wishes he could retract his tail like he can his claws and canines, drawing them back inside his body to appear less threatening. If only his tail could disappear so easily.

But... he had fought hard to save his tail. Why hide it? They could have taken it; he could have let them have it. But he hadn't.

He wonders, would he have even survived the ordeal? He can't imagine the pain. Surely he would have bled out back there in that alley had he lain there and let them take what they wanted. That blade the man had brought had looked nowhere near sharp enough to slice through skin, much less bone.

"Come now, join us," the woman says, breaking Daesung from his tumultuous thoughts. "The meat is all cooked up by now, almost ready for serving. Sorry, I know you like yours before it has hit the flames." She grin at him apologetically. "After last week we weren't sure we'd see you again."

He freezes. What is that supposed to mean?

"Are you okay? You went pale all of a sudden," the old woman says, reaching for him but this time stopping just short of making contact. She regards him with sudden caution and asks, seeming contrite, "Is this something we could catch, or is it just a wolf thing?"

"Just a wolf thing, I think," he says faintly.

He is not one of them, and in fact, he no longer wishes to be. Daesung sees this now, knows it in his heart. With great chagrin he acknowledges that he was always only an outsider playing at belonging.

Seunghyun was right all along; humans don't want to know him, they want to lure him in and snare him, cage him and study him, break him down into parts to learn how he functions, how he moves, how he thinks, how he loves. These people would reduce him to pieces if it meant they could peek in at how his heart beats. Whether they realize it or not, they jump on every opportunity to point out how _different_ he is from them, how _unlike_ them he and the rest of his kind are.

His kind.

"Wait! Where are you going?"

"I have to go," he says quickly, curtly, impolitely, edging away all the while. He can't do it. He can't handle all these people right now. "I have to... I'll see you later."

He thought he was an exception, a special case. He thought wrong.

 

\--

 

Daesung refuses to let Seunghyun mount him.

It is completely beyond Seunghyun's understanding, his mate's increasingly strange behavior. It causes Seunghyun great stress. Daesung has always been skittish by nature, but these days he is downright avoidant, slipping out the door in the same moment Seunghyun walks in, turning away from him at night and pretending to be asleep as Seunghyun roams his body with hopeful hands, yearning for him.

But always the other man holds himself at arm’s length, increasingly out of Seunghyun's reach. It frustrates him to no end. Seunghyun cannot help Daesung if he cannot touch him. Can't draw out the source of his mate's affliction, whatever is hurting him, if he can't wrap arms around him and hold him close.

And he knows that Daesung is hurting. He is not _blind_.

Among wolves there is no replacement for physical contact; no amount of conversation or carefully crafted gifts or acts of service can make up for an absence of touch between them.

Seunghyun feels progressively disconnected from Daesung these days. The growing distance between them is slowly breaking him apart, like a tangle of vines cracking open solid stone with the passage of time.

One night Seunghyun reaches for him, the two of them safely cocooned away in their bed. The second his hand meets Daesung's skin the other wolf wrenches himself away. " _No_ ," he says irritably, Seunghyun jerks back like Daesung _bit_ him.

He doesn't understand.

"What's your problem?" he says crossly, his resentment bubbling up and spilling over at last. Seunghyun feels how Daesung is suffering and wants to go to his rescue more than anything. But Daesung shuts him out entirely, refuses to just _talk_ to him, his mate's refusal to confide in him fast becoming a festering wound. What once concerned Seunghyun now infuriates him. Never before has Daesung been so secretive.

"I'm not in the mood," is all Daesung says.

"'Not in the mood?' What does that even mean?" Seunghyun props himself up on his elbows and looms over Daesung, looking down at him in doubt. "Is 'not in the mood' something your human friends say?"

Daesung gives him a sour look. Seunghyun sees the way his jaw clenches in anger, and it's wrong, it's all wrong. He wants to step up to the other wolf and kiss him viciously, force his pursed lips open with his own, soften that hard expression that is so foreign on Daesung's normally kind face.

"Leave me alone, Seunghyun. I don't want to fuck right now," Daesung replies-- and to Seunghyun, who has spent years as close to this man as he could possibly be, he sounds nothing like Daesung at all.

"Maybe I don't want to fuck you. Maybe I just want to feel you."

"I don't want that either."

"Why not?" Seunghyun demands. "Why this--" he waves vaguely at the sheets, the foot of space separating them feeling more like a mile. "--all of a sudden? What's changed?"

"Nothing has changed."

"Yeah, you keep saying that, but you're different somehow." Seunghyun narrows eyes at Daesung. "You've changed. You've become..." _Less wolf. More human_. Seunghyun doesn't like it one bit.

Daesung huffs in frustration. "Okay, fine. Maybe I've changed a little. Because we _have_ to, here," Daesung says. "If we want to survive here we have to be willing to change."

"No, we don't," Seunghyun answers him stubbornly. "We're fine just as we are."

"And that's your problem! You haven’t changed at all!" Daesung cries suddenly, throwing the blanket back and sitting up. "In all the time we've been here you haven't changed at all, Seunghyun. And because you refuse to adapt, you are making our time here so much harder than it has to be."

That hurts. "That's not true. I'm not the problem here," Seunghyun says, refusing to be swayed. Daesung is wrong about him.

At that Daesung looks mightily insulted. "What?" he says, the strangest expression crossing his face.

Shit. Seunghyun rushes to explain before this gets any worse. "No, stop," he cuts him off. "I don't mean that _you're_ the problem here. It's everyone else. It's everything about this miserable place."

Daesung is never so quick to anger, is never so easy to offend. Who is this wolf sharing his bed? Seunghyun feels eerily like he is fighting with a stranger.

"What happened to you?" Seunghyun asks for what feels like the hundredth time. By now this has become a tired question between them, the words worn and abused by Seunghyun's repeated use.

And as always, Daesung goes very still, clinging to his silence with a white-knuckled grip.

"What won't you just fucking _tell me?_ " Seunghyun yells. "This has something to do with those cuts on your neck, doesn't it?" The worst of the lacerations are well on their way to full healing, but the dark bruising look a noose around his neck lingers and pains Seunghyun every time he lays eyes on it.

"Did someone hurt you?"

"No. I already told you how it happened," Daesung says sullenly.

"Don't feed me lies, Daesung," Seunghyun says dangerously. "Not again."

"I'm not. There's nothing to tell."

Seunghyun wants to grab him by the throat and _strangle_ him, wants to wrap hands right over the still-healing injuries to Daesung's neck and shake him until he gives up his secrets.

"God, you're so fucking frustrating. Why won't you talk to me?!" Seunghyun roars.

"Because nothing happened!" Daesung shrieks back at him. "Why do you keep asking me that? Just leave it alone already! Nothing happened! I'm fine!"

Seunghyun sits back and studies the other wolf closely. He knows this tactic, recognizes something in the way Daesung drives him back; it is the last stand of a cornered, wounded animal.

"You're lying," Seunghyun says, "You think I can't tell when you're hurting? My senses are still sharp." Daesung has lost touch with his wolf, and it is the most tragic fucking thing. "What about yours?"

"My senses are fine, Seunghyun." Daesung settles back to the bed, and Seunghyun wants nothing more right now than to just reach out and touch him. It should be so simple. It should be the easiest thing.

"You need to stop spending so much time around those humans," he grouses. "They're a bad influence, and they're doing something to you, I know it. I've always known it."

Daesung flips over, giving Seunghyun his back. "You can't tell me what to do."

_Don't you dare turn your back on me_ , Seunghyun wants to say, _You now what I'm capable of_. He bites his tongue.

"Maybe not," he settles on, "Maybe I can't keep you away from them, but I can keep _them_ away from you."

A beat of silence, and very softly Daesung replies, "Don't hurt them."

"If not them, then who? Who do I have to hurt in order to protect you? You?” Seunghyun looks Daesung dead in the eye and says, "Forget what I just said. I _can_ make you stay if that's what it comes to."

_I'll break your fucking legs if that's what I have to do to keep you here_ , the thought comes unbidden and Seunghyun squashes it like he would a roach. He would _never_. Daesung has helped him manage these kinds of urges over the years. But lately, deprived of the other's calming influence, his own innate violence has been making a steady resurgence.

Seunghyun does not just want Daesung. He _needs_ Daesung.

"I'm not afraid of what you can do to me," Daesung replies darkly.

Seunghyun's own reply dances on the tip of his tongue, caught somewhere between _You should be_ and _Good, I don't want you to be_. Only Daesung could have him feeling so conflicted. No other wolf has ever had this effect on him. He just stares at his mate, not knowing what else to do.

Where is the Daesung that he knows? The wolf he has given his life to and clawed his way back from the brink of death to defend? What has happened to that Daesung?

Daesung pulls the blanket up to his chin and makes as if to sleep. Seunghyun observes him with emotions warring inside him, alternating between affection and aggravation. In the end neither wins him over, so he resigns himself to experiencing both in equal parts.

"Don't forget what I told you before. What I promised you," Seunghyun says softly, as sincerely as he is able. "That if you hide from me, I will find you. I will always find you. Okay?"

That day in the grove Seunghyun thought they had regained what they had lost. For him it is their last, happiest memory together before the pieces of their lives really began tumbling downhill, gaining speed as they went.

"You're obsessed with this idea that I'm hiding something," Daesung murmurs sleepily.

"That's because you are," Seunghyun says, not unkindly. Just stating a fact.

Daesung groans. "Go to sleep, Seunghyun."

"I'm your mate. You can tell me anything," Seunghyun says sadly, feeling the other slip further and further away. He hopes Daesung has not forgotten. "Please talk to me."

Daesung pulls the blanket over his head and keeps it there, and Seunghyun understands. This conversation is over.

He will not give up on Daesung. But they might need some separation. Something has to give eventually, and at the rate they are going it might be Seunghyun's tenuous grasp on his own brittle self-control. He might... He could end up hurting Daesung, and not in a way the other would like or even tolerate.

Seunghyun swallows down the silence between them as he settles down and awaits a better place in dreams, their growing disconnect a sickness that plagues the both of them, slowly and insidiously dragging them to their knees.

If Seunghyun goes down, then so be it. But he will hold Daesung up as long as he has the strength.

 

\--

 

"Daesung," Seungri says to him one dreary day as they are making their way back home, their footsteps unhurried even as a light mist drifts down all around them. It's pleasant, Daesung thinks, the water floating down from the dark sky and gathering on his skin with a touch so soft his almost does not feel it-- until suddenly he _does_ , realizing that his clothes are damp and heavy, tiny droplets of water dripping from the ends of his hair.

Seungri makes an irritated sound and shakes his head wildly, sending water droplets in every direction. Seungri may not be pleased, but Daesung feels at home in the mist. The gloomy weather mirrors his mood.

"Hm?"

"I heard something the other day," Seungri says quietly. "Something I think you should know."

"From your friends?"

"My... yeah," the other wolf grins sheepishly. His face is fond as he says, "Yeah, friends. I guess they can be called that now."

"I'd certainly say so."

"Anyway," Seungri continues, his eyes fixed on the ground as they walk, "I heard there are some guys around here who... Well, they... They got ahold of a wolf not long ago. Ganged up on him."

Daesung's steps falter for a moment, but he recovers quickly. He keeps going. Seungri does not seem to notice.

"Oh?" he says, feigning ignorance.

"Yeah."

Wetting his lips, Daesung asks, "When was this?"

"Few weeks ago I think."

"Damn." Probably him, then.

"Yeah. It was pretty bad," Seungri says lowly.

"What did they do?" Daesung asks, like it hadn't happened to him, like he had not been present for every horrible moment of it.

"They tried to--" Seungri's face twists up in sympathetic pain. "They tried to _cut off his tail_. Cut off a wolf's tail! Can you believe that?"

"Wow," Daesung says, "That's awful," and it's like the words come from somewhere outside himself, like he isn't speaking at all. Like his body is going on without him and he is powerless to stop it. Is nothing his to control anymore?

"It's fuckin' barbaric," Seungri snarls. "I mean, can you imagine? No, wait-- don't. God, what a nightmare."

Daesung only nods. "What happened to him? The wolf, I mean."

"Dunno," Seungri says and kicks at the wet gravel under his shoes. "No one really knows. It's all hearsay, anyway. Guess he got away."

"That's good," Daesung replies in a hollow voice.

"Yeah, good for him, but still. Those fuckers. Anyone stupid enough to try something like that on me, I'd claw their fucking eyes out."

Daesung looks at Seungri then. He cannot stop the unwanted images that come to him then, of his packmate suffering  the same fate. The thought of Seungri in his place fills Daesung with horror. It nearly bowls him over, the protective instinct that blows through him at the thought, and he looks to the sky with eyes suddenly full of unshed tears, beyond grateful that those bastards got him that day and not Seungri.

Impulsively, he pulls Seungri to him. The other yelps in surprise and nearly loses his footing while Daesung crushes them together with a hand on the back of Seungri's head, his fingers clutching tightly at the back of the younger man's skull.

"Daesung, what--"

" _Be careful_ , Seungri," Daesung whispers with a ferocity he had thought forever lost. "Be _so fucking cautious_ , okay? Don't ever let something like that happen to you."

"It won't," Seungri says like there is no doubt in his mind that he is safe, sheltered inside these walls. Daesung thought that once too, and it cost him dearly.

"It could happen. You can't be too careful. Just... please watch yourself." Daesung draws back to catch Seungri's eye, hating his next words but knowing they have to be said. "Those humans you hang around... I don't know...."

Seungri wrests himself away, puts a few steps between them. "Really? Now you're going to tell me I can't see my new 'friends'? Your word, not mine," Seungri points out, frowning. "That's rich, coming from you."

"Seungri," Daesung sighs."Please."

"Seriously, don't worry about them. They're good kids. Most of them."

"I know, I know. I guess I'm just..."

Seungri scowls down at the ground, wearing an expression like he just stuck his nose in something rancid. Daesung has seem him do just that one more than one occasion. He would laugh at the memory if he could only summon the energy.

"Don't treat me like a child," Seungri states. "Because I'm not one. Not even close."

"I know. I know you can handle yourself," Daesung concedes, weary of fighting. "But I'm worried about you. Humans are predators too."

"How could I ever forget?"

Daesung extends a hand, which Seungri accepts a moment later, their fingers entwining.

"Yeah, alright, fine," Seungri mutters. Then, just as they get going again, "You know... You seem a little off lately. You okay?"

It's easy enough by now to brush off his concern. "Just a little spooked by the news. I'm glad you told me though."

"Sorry, but I just thought you should know. Just in case," Seungri says. Then, "Thanks for your concern. I'll be extra careful."

"Good." Daesung purses his lips, all out of smiles. "That's all I wanted to hear."

He isn't satisfied though, not really. Seungri does not realize what he could be up against if they come for him.

Seungri... Seungri is too proud to emerge from such an ordeal unscathed. Seungri would not bend under the pressure. He would not be able to. In his place Seungri would surely break, Daesung thinks, his brittle body flying to pieces in the face of such extravagant hatred.

But Daesung is flexible. If life has taught him one thing it is that the key to survival is learning to adapt to one's surroundings. He is pliant enough to have found himself a place here for a time, fitting himself into all the nooks and crannies that he realizes now no wolf should ever occupy. One day at a time Daesung had poured himself into a new mold and fancied himself something special. _Look what I can do_ , he had sometimes felt like shouting to the rooftops. _Look at what I can become._

But now... he feels like he has lost his shape. He cannot quite bounce back to his old form. His elasticity is gone, dried up in the heat of the humans' hostility.

Daesung no longer recognizes himself, full of fear and loathing for what he has become. He was the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing, except... He had born the sheep no ill will, had not hungered for their flesh in the slightest.

He had genuinely wanted to _be_ the sheep. Now Daesung does not know what he wants.

 

\--

 

There is only one thing Seunghyun wants right now, and that is Daesung. He _needs_ Daesung.

But Daesung does not want him. It hurts him more than he likes to admit.

So he guesses he will have to settle for a substitute. His packmates would be willing, would indulge him happily enough if he would only ask... but Seunghyun cannot go to them for this. In all his pent-up anger, his mate's rejection festering inside him like an untreated wound, Seunghyun needs a body to conquer. Jiyong, Youngbae, even Seungri... His packmates will not tolerate him in this state. They will not suit his needs.

And Daesung will not even look at him.

He has to travel for it, venturing outside their allotted jurisdiction and into the territory of a neighboring pack. The moment Seunghyun sets foot in their district his nostrils flare, scenting the air. He can smell the change, the musk of _wolf_ stronger and more potent here than in the small area his own pack controls. A large pack dwells here. One that is well established.

Good, Seunghyun thinks. That should make his job easier. Smaller packs like his own tend to be more tightly knit, while larger packs enforce their rules more loosely, policing their members' actions with milder scrutiny. His chances of locating a partner are good.

Rival or not, the wolf he finds is more than willing to indulge him.

Seunghyun does not need to explain himself. The wolf picks up on his arousal the moment he sees him, and meets him halfway, no words necessary. Seunghyun has missed it, he realizes, the easy understanding that comes with being among others of his kind.

Seunghyun grabs him by the arm and pulls him into a back alley, nothing at all gentle about his grip. They fall into each other, rutting like animals up against a rough wall; it is late, there is no one around to see them, no one to stop them. The darkness aids them, concealing their spontaneous coupling from prying eyes.

"God, you smell so good," the other wolf sighs, nosing into Seunghyun's neck. Seunghyun spins him around and rakes at his clothes, his intent clear, his need urgent.

It has been too long. He has tried, oh has he _tried_ , waiting so patiently, holding out hope for Daesung's recovery from... whatever it is that plagues him.

But as far as Seunghyun can tell, there is no end in sight. Tonight he takes matters into his own hands.

The other wolf helps Seunghyun shove his pants down his thighs, and at his first glimpse of skin Seunghyun slots his cock between the man's thighs, pressing the full length of his body to the smaller one before him, groaning in much-needed satisfaction at the feel of another's hot skin against his arousal The intense heat between the man's thighs entices Seunghyun to adjust his position, taking himself in hand and angling the head of his cock higher, reaching further... pressing...

He could do it. He could push into this other wolf right now and claim that sweet, tight, _blazing_ heat for himself. Daesung has not let Seunghyun inside his body in so long... too long. By now Seunghyun craves it, the initial resistance, the eventual give, the smooth slide as he pushes in, a ring of pressure clamping down around his cock... followed by the slick _pull_ of the other wolf's body on his cock as he cants his hips away, backing himself out.

As Seunghyun considers it, imagines it, watches the fantasy unfold through his mind's eye, his hips go on moving of their own accord, thrusting his weeping cock between the man's thighs, pre-come smoothing the way. It feels good, but... this way is not to Seunghyun's liking. He and Daesung rarely fuck this way anymore, have all but abandoned it for greater thrills. He wants _inside_.

He could. Oh, he could.

But Seunghyun does not want that kind of intimacy with this wolf. This will be their only meeting. They will likely never cross paths again.

In the end, it all comes down to Daesung.

The man under him bucks suddenly, his back bowing before Seunghyun as he finds release in his own hand. _Well_ , Seunghyun thinks. _That was fast_.

Seunghyun needs a little more-- more time, more friction, more pressure, more fucking. As he covers the other wolf's body with his own, the furs on the other's tail trapped between them tickling his hip, he closes his eyes and imagines his mate under him. He remembers the last time they did it against a wall like this, recalls their irate human neighbor rebuking them for their indecency.

_Indecency_ , Seunghyun thinks in amazement. _Fuck_ indecency. He revels in the memory of nipping at the backs of Daesung's ears, his sharp teeth clipping the thin skin there and reducing Daesung to quivering under him. As Seunghyun ruts into this nameless wolf beneath him he re-lives the sensation of Daesung coming undone under his relentless assault, never retreating but always turning into it, inviting it, opening himself further to everything his mate inflicts on him as Seunghyun's teeth and claws and cock sink into him all at once.

Seunghyun comes explosively with the image of Daesung vivid in his mind's eye, the memory of his skin as real as the warm body under his hands, the whisper of his name balanced on the tip of his tongue.

He will not speak his name. Not here, not like this.

Daesung is well adapted to the aggressive nature of Seunghyun's need, knows exactly what he requires and gives it to him like he was created for that very purpose, his body sculpted to fit Seunghyun's flawlessly, his personality complementing Seunghyun's faultlessly. In his own way Daesung takes better care of him than any other wolf ever could, and _that_ is what Seunghyun longs for. Not... this. Whatever this is.

The other wolf plucks Seunghyun's hands off his hips, prying his tight-knuckled grip from his damp skin and turns to face him, breathing hard. He touches the  Seunghyun's come smudged over the insides of his thighs and looks up at him with a devious grin.

"That was nice," he purrs. "Wanna go again in a few? I won't need long."

"No," he says in a voice as broken as shattered glass. He did what he came here to do. So why does he only feel worse? "Thanks, but we're done here."

"I can smell him on you, you know," the other wolf says. He gives Seunghyun a sly look. "You've got someone back home, don't you? Bold of you to come here like this. Your mate not putting out for you?"

"It's none of your business," Seunghyun growls, pushing him away.

"I didn't say it was a problem. I like it, actually," the wolf says, leaning into him again. "I can be your dirty little secret."

"I told you _no_." Seunghyun curls his lip at him, showing him a hint of fang. This wolf is nothing to him, was just a warm body to satisfy an impulse in his mate's absence. "Again, thanks for the fuck, but consider it a one time thing. This isn't happening again."

"Well," the man says, pressing his body against Seunghyun's brazenly. "If you ever decide to leave him for someone who actually wants you..."

" _Fuck off_ ," Seunghyun growls, shoving him away hard this time.

Daesung is far from just some wolf that he fucks around with on a regular basis. Seunghyun hunts with him, feeds with him, plays with him, sleeps beside him. He kills with him, has killed _for_ him and would do it again as many times as Daesung asks him. Laughs and cries with him. Talks with him and shares with him all his secrets... even if lately Daesung does not return the favor.

Seunghyun _knows_ him, inside and out. Daesung is his mate, and he is everything to him. Leaving him could never be that simple. And he wouldn't anyway, not even if it was the easiest thing in the world. Seunghyun cannot stomach the thought of ever letting the other wolf go.

The man just shrugs and hikes up his jeans, sauntering away without even a cursory glance back at him. He must do this often. Seunghyun sure knows how to pick 'em, doesn't he?

As he makes his way back home, something the man had said to him bothers him like a splinter stuck under his skin. Seunghyun cannot for the life of him understand why Daesung does not seem to want him lately. It hurts like hell when Daesung turns him away. It slices him deep when he shies away from his touch, tears Seunghyun's heart out when he enters the room and Daesung looks at him like he is somehow _afraid_ of the things he plans to do to him.

Seunghyun sinks deeper into his melancholy the more he dwells on it, his overactive imagination like acid eating away at the lining of his stomach, feeding on his doubts and his fears. And just like acid, it _burns_.

Sure, they got off to a rocky start, but he and Daesung have come so far in all the years they've been at each other's sides. Together they have pulled through so much, have survived all the shit that life has hurled at the two of them thus far.

Like everything else they have conquered, they will survive this too. They have to.

 

\--

 

The look of guilt Seunghyun wears as he stumbles in that night, the skin between his brows pinched in pain, the line of his lips thin and severe, endures for Daesung long after his mate disappears from sight. And in his wake the unmistakable smell of sex, Seunghyun's familiar, spicy musk mixed with the scent of another, someone he does not recognize. This was not one of their packmates, not Jiyong or Youngbae or Seungri. Daesung does not know this wolf.

His world falls in on itself, the fragments raining down around him.

He was not supposed to be here tonight. He was... He was supposed to be at the gathering with the townspeople, and he had told Seunghyun as much, even though he rarely attends these days.

How long has this been going on? How long has Seunghyun been turning to another for the comfort Daesung has repeatedly denied him? His senses have been dulled as of late; Seunghyun had pointed that out to him weeks ago. Maybe this has been happening right under his nose, and Daesung failed to see it entirely.

Something in him shuts down, dries up, shrivels and shrinks away to nothing. Daesung knows he has hurt his mate with his persistent silence, but not even in his worst nightmares did his reticence drive Seunghyun _away_ and into the arms of another.

His mate is leaving him for another wolf. Has left him already. His mate.

Are they still...? What does this make them, him and Seunghyun? Is this where they end? Here, like this?

He feels like he has hit the floor, but when he looks about him, he sees that he is miraculously still standing, his feet rooted in place. Since Seunghyun passed through that door what seems an eternity ago, Daesung has not moved at an inch. Time has slowed to a crawl around him, the world through his eyes seeming unreal.

Something has fallen out of him, he is sure of it. Something very important has left him, something he cannot live without. It might have been his heart that hit the floor, breaking open on impact. He touches fingers to his chest and is surprised when they do not come away bloody from the gaping hole where it once beat.

A pervasive sense of emptiness settles over him.

Seunghyun was his last pillar of support. For the past several weeks his _only_ pillar of support as he fought to recover on his own, quietly, in secret, from wounds no one could see. Who does he have to turn to now?

He bites his lip so hard he tastes blood. He can't... He can't do this anymore.

His feet carry him out the door. As with everything he does, he goes silently, little more than a shadow moving in the dark. He walks the city streets at night, his feet scraping faintly through the dirt, rocks crunching under the worn soles of his shoes with every step, but he does not hear it. The end of his tail brushes against the backs of his thighs from time to time, a feather-light touch through the denim of his jeans, but he does not feel it.

The light of the moon is dim tonight, little more than a sliver in the sky, though the stars shine brightly as ever. But Daesung does not see them, the moon and stars in all their beauty blacked out by his sudden tunnel vision. His eyes are fixed on one thing only: an expanse of blackness before him.

He has reached the river.

Half a mile across and no one knows how deep, it may as well be a dark canyon spread out before him. Like if he stepped into it he would simply fall, fall into darkness, his descent endless, swallowed up by a pit that is bottomless.

But Daesung knows he will not fall. He will sink.

At the shore he sheds his coat, dropping it behind him. He will not take it into the abyss with him. Seunghyun loves that coat. Seunghyun has always loved _him_ in that coat. Seunghyun may not want to keep him, but he might want to keep the coat.

Or will he? Seunghyun has someone else now. Daesung swiftly smothers the thought, pushing it down into the dark where it cannot hurt him anymore along with everything else.

Who is he fooling, but himself? He is not recovering. The rope marks on his neck have scarred over, but the rest of his wounds are just as fresh as the day they were inflicted. He has been bleeding out ever since. Daesung cannot continue on this way, alone with his injuries. He can't, he doesn't have to, and he won't.

He wades into the water, for once in his life unafraid.

It's cold. The water swirls around his ankles the moment he steps in, curls around his knees, covers him up to his thighs. The river's muddy bottom seems to suck Daesung in as he goes deeper, sliding into the river's icy embrace. His eyes are wide open yet he sees nothing but darkness above him and all around him; sees nothing and feels nothing but the weight of the water and a growing chill.

The farther he goes he realizes that though he cannot swim, his body wants to stay afloat all on its own, the store of oxygen in his lungs an unwanted buoy. Daesung exhales, expelling the last of it from his weary body. He closes his eyes and takes another step, and another.

The sloping river bottom comes to a sudden end, dropping away from him. The water sloshes over his head and he goes under.

The water's icy embrace numbs him, the weight of it around him not suffocating as he expected but a strange comfort. Like a recollection of something from long ago, a memory half-formed before he was old enough to truly remember. Like returning to his mother's womb, to the very beginning of this tormented life. Safe, suspended, free from struggle or strife.

And all around him, nothing but black.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: [Lie To Me (Denial)](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDSDcteFg0ak9SRUE) (Seunghyun)  
> [Nothing And Everything](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDZ2NyNE9fSGlFQUU) (Daesung)


	7. Chapter 7

Pain.

Pressure on his ribs. Something pounding on his chest. An insistent weight centered over his sternum, pushing, pushing.

A voice swimming through the darkness, muddled, indistinct. Laced with fear and pain, always more pain.

 _Cold_.

Something in his chest contracts, squeezing painfully-- oh _god--_ and instinctively Daesung rolls onto his side and heaves once, twice. His lungs spasm again and this time water comes pouring out of his mouth, copious amounts of it, the icy liquid like fire as it comes up his airways and out.

Gasping uncontrollably, his body greedily sucking in lungfuls of air, Daesung registers only _dark_ and _wet_ and _cold_ and above all, pain.

When he flops onto his back he registers something else-- a figure hovering over him. In the dark he can barely make out the face, his vision blurred by the remnants of river water in his eyes.

" _\--sung_ ," he hears, fading out for a moment. Something hits his face sharply and he jerks awake. "Daesung! Wake up!"

It's Seungri, his eyes just as wet as Daesung's but with tears. Water trickles off of him as he hovers over Daesung, his soaked-through clothes clinging to his skin and his hair hanging wetly from his head in waterlogged clumps.

Seungri...

Did Seungri just _hit him?_

"Ri," he manages to croak, feeling dazed. What is there to say? His head is full of cotton, his thoughts sluggish, the act of forming thoughts and turning them into words every bit as difficult as slogging through thick mud.

"Daesung," Seungri repeats, pleading with him. "Oh god, Daesung, stay with me."

Daesung can't help it. His eyes slip shut again and he drifts for a bit.

" _No, no_ ," he hears faintly, as if from very far away, but he does feel the hands cupping his face, trembling fingers wiping wet hair from his closed eyelids.

Something hot hits his face.

"I've got you," Seungri promises with a watery voice, still clutching at him. "Just stay, okay? Don't sleep. Don't--" He seems to choke. "Don't leave us, _please_."

Seungri is crying over him. Daesung comes back to himself enough to mutter an incoherent "Mm," unable to move his lips the way he wants to around sudden shivers wracking his helpless body, freezing and in pain, his lungs aching terribly inside him. "--on't cry," he finally forces out, his voice so weak even he can barely hear it.

"I've got you," Seungri cries into his neck. He didn't hear him.

"'Ri... 's okay," Daesung mumbles, hoping the other will understand his barely audible babble. He raises a hand to Seungri's face-- at least, he thinks he does, he cannot feel much of his body past the numbing cold-- and at the touch of his fingers Seungri startles, jumping back and staring down at him in shock.

"Daesung," Seungri sobs, " _Why_."

He can't bear the sight of the other's stricken face, his puffy, teary eyes. Daesung tries to muster up a wan smile but thinks it must come off as a grimace of pain by the way Seungri's face crinkles up. In the frigid night air, his own drenched clothes plastered to him, Daesung can barely feel his own face.

Seungri runs frantic hands over Daesung's face and neck, glides them across his chest and collarbones, rubs them up and down his arms, trying to warm him. He tries to talk to Daesung throughout, determined to keep him there with him, awake, aware. But now that Seungri knows he is alive and has ceased his crying, Daesung ignores his attempts to engage him. For a while he simply lets the other work, focuses on breathing-- just breathing, not speaking-- and for a while it's even kind of nice.

Eventually though, feeling wrung-out and desperate to escape it, Daesung lets himself drift again, retreating back into the syrupy blackness of his own mind for a little while.

 

\--

 

He's fine.

Seunghyun repeats this to himself over and over again as he keeps watch over Daesung while he rests, stoically standing guard over his mate. The others tiptoe around him until he finally snaps at them to stop. They have no reason to act like they must walk on thin ice around him, afraid it might break. Afraid _he_ might break.

It is Daesung they should be worrying about. Seunghyun was not dragged out of the river only hours ago, not breathing. Seunghyun did not nearly drown in a body of water he could not swim. Seunghyun did not just calmly walk the city streets in the dead of night, wading down the river's banks and into its frigid water calmly, peacefully, unquestionably with every intent to _die_.

Seungri had watched as Daesung had walked in under his own power. This was no accident.

Looking down at his mate, Seunghyun smoothes the hair off of his face, deceptively peaceful in sleep. He stares down at Daesung's closed eyes and wills them to open. Under the light touch of his fingers he does not stir, only breathes softly in quiet slumber, every blanket they own piled onto him rising and falling with each slow, steady breath.

Daesung needs them all right now, not Seunghyun.

He's fine. He's fine.

 

\--

 

"His coat," Seunghyun says suddenly. It is early morning now. The impending sunrise peeks in at them through the thin material of their window coverings. From his position on the floor, slumped over in a corner, Seungri looks up at him blearily. His eyes are dry but still red, the skin around them puffy, swollen. As much as Seunghyun would prefer to be alone with Daesung right now, he permits the other wolf to stay only out of gratitude. Without Seungri, Daesung would not be... here.

Without Seungri, Daesung would be lost.

Seunghyun nearly apologizes for every time he has picked on him, poked and prodded at him, even bullied him. Wants to wipe clean every incident between them, so great is his debt to Seungri.

Seunghyun will never forget that precise moment when, in the middle of the night, a soaking wet Seungri fell through the front door under the weight of an equally soaked, barely conscious Daesung. Daesung, who could scarcely keep his own legs under him, hanging off of Seungri to stay upright, an arm slung over the younger man's shoulders, his elbow locking around Seungri's neck while his knees buckled beneath him. Though he was clearly alive, Daesung's skin had been icy to the touch; for a split second Seunghyun, too, had frozen in fear.

"Seungri, his coat," Seunghyun repeats, louder this time.

"Hm?"

"His coat isn't here," Seunghyun says. Daesung is almost never seen without it these days, especially now during the cold months, winter hiding just around the corner, waiting to leap out at them. "Have you seen it?"

"It must be back at the river," Seungri guesses. He rubs a tired hand over his face. "I didn't think to grab it... Sorry. I'm really sorry, Seunghyun."

Seunghyun does not know why, exactly, but he has to retrieve that coat. It was always important to Daesung. He has had it for years, and it calls to mind precious memories of the day Seunghyun had introduced him to the pack and officially made him one of their own.

On the floor, Seungri begins to weep again, softly this time. "I'm so _sorry_ ," he says again in a whisper. “I could’ve-- I could’ve been quicker--”

Seunghyun shakes his head. "Don't. You did good." The way the other wolf flinches when he lays a hand on his head of rumpled hair hurts his heart in a way he does not expect, is not prepared for. Seungri trembles under his touch, and Seunghyun soon realizes it is not out of fear of _him,_ but fear for their ailing packmate asleep on the bed beside them.

"Stay with him. I'll be back."

Seungri nods, and Seunghyun goes to retrieve what Daesung left behind.

 

\--

 

Miraculously, the coat is still there. Not stolen, not snatched up off the ground by some poor soul thinking he has chanced upon a free handout. If Seunghyun were to cross paths with anyone in possession of this coat right now, they would not stand a chance. Seunghyun would take them apart. They would be a smear of blood on the ground before the coat had left their hands and hit the dirt.

It belongs to Daesung. It can never be anyone else's.

Seunghyun stands there on the shoreline and stares down at the coat in his hands for a good, long while.

Something in him fractures, every hope he has clung to in the months since they settled here crashing to the ground like a great tree in the woods, slamming into the forest floor with a sound like thunder. In the same way, Seunghyun roars out all his frustration, his rage, his grief, his pain. Uprooting it from someplace deep within, he howls his ire to the empty sky, pours out his sorrow, unburdens himself of all his unwanted emotion. He rages until his throat feels shredded, cursing and swearing at the dawn, at the new day before him and at every day behind him that has led up to this moment. Seunghyun cries out for himself and he cries out for Daesung, the man he has called his own for so long, now so broken.

They were supposed to survive this terrible place. Seunghyun does not know why Daesung did it, and it tears him up inside. It fucking _kills_ him.

His mind races, desperate to connect the pieces. That evening... Seunghyun had counted on Daesung not being home then. But he had been.

Did Daesung... Did he smell the other wolf on him as he crept in? Was this Seunghyun's doing?

His hands curl into fists around the coat's rough material, clutching it to himself like a lifeline. Did he do this? Did his actions drive his mate, who cannot swim, to go and _walk himself into the river?_

And what the fuck happened to Daesung, anyway? What terrible secret has he been holding onto so tightly, hiding so stubbornly? What can't he tell Seunghyun? Daesung is a remarkably private person by nature, but surely he knows by now that he can tell Seunghyun anything. _Anything_. He and Daesung share everything that's worth telling, and everything that isn't.

...Don't they?

What has happened to them? When did they fall apart like this? At what point did they give way to the forces working against them?

He has seen the forces of nature at work countless times over the years. He has observed the roots of a tree winding their way through solid rock, their decades of slow growth chipping away at the stone's great strength until it split apart under the pressure. Is that what has happened here? He never thought they would come undone like this. Never thought they _could_.

As the sun rises over the city's not-too-distant walls, Seunghyun peers out across the river and thinks of what might have been. He imagines another world in which he stands here in this very spot, holding Daesung's jacket close and knowing not where his mate has disappeared to, only that he did not return the following morning.

What would he have done, then? What lengths would he have gone to, how far and wide would he have searched, leaving no stone unturned until at last he found... until he found...

His imagination runs away with him, hysteria scrabbling at his insides like a live thing desperate for a way out. He cannot bear to think of it. He _cannot_.

He will not dwell on the what-ifs. Daesung came back to them, came back to him. Was returned to his arms dripping wet and barely breathing and utterly out of it, delirious from his brush with death and the forced revival that followed. Daesung is alive, he is _alive_ , and Seunghyun has never in his life felt more indebted to their youngest packmate for making sure of that. He came back, but even so... Seunghyun feels a newfound doubt eating away at him.

Daesung will survive, but after this, after everything, will he ever be the same? Has Seunghyun lost his mate forever?

 

\--

 

Daesung sleeps and sleeps. Seunghyun checks on him periodically to make sure he has not perished right there in their bed. The thought of finding Daesung cold to the touch leaves him weak in the knees, so he never leaves his side for long. That he is prey to such a fear pulls and tugs at Seunghyun's stubborn pride, and he wrestles with it in solitude, day and night.

But pride has no place here between the two of them. Not now. Perhaps not ever again.

Sometimes Seunghyun climbs into bed with Daesung and just holds him, needing to do more than merely look and listen as he breathes in sleep. He needs to _feel_ it, the rhythmic rise and fall of his mate drawing breath, his arms wrapped loosely around the other's bare chest. Occasionally Daesung seems to wake, his lashes lifting to reveal dark eyes clouded with sleep-- sleep, and something else Seunghyun struggles to identify-- before he withdraws again into a land of dreams.

Seunghyun wants little more in the world than to speak to him, yearns to hear his sweet voice again, quells the impulse to shake Daesung awake and demand answers. But more than that he hopes the man in his arms finds some solace there, wherever he has gone away to in his head. With a press of lips to the nape of his neck Seunghyun wishes upon him gentle dreams that cradle and comfort him as sweetly as Seunghyun is doing now.

Whatever happened to Daesung's iron will to live? That impenetrable instinct to survive? Where is the light Seunghyun loves, the life, the vitality? Lying here like this, the other wolf may be warm and alive, but he is merely a shell of his former self. Seeing him like this, Seunghyun feels hollowed out, himself.

They are probably wondering at his absence out in the fields. Well _fuck_ them, Seunghyun thinks. He is exactly where he needs to be. Nothing in this world can drag him away now.

"Come back to me," he murmurs into Daesung's neck, hoping with everything in him that his words reach him, wherever he has fled to inside himself. "There is no need to run and hide. Not from me. Not anymore." There never was.

Daesung is lost, but Seunghyun will find him. Seunghyun will _always_ find him. He promised he would, didn't he?

He holds onto hope that the Daesung he loves is still in there for him to find. He can't wait to see him again.

 

\--

 

"We're leaving."

He can see that Jiyong is frustrated. He can see how Jiyong wants to argue, _you fought me so hard to bring the pack here, isn't this what you wanted?_

This was never what Seunghyun wanted.

"Seunghyun."

"A few days ago Daesung tried to--" Seunghyun shakes his head, physically unable to say it. He does not yet know why, but he knows at least one thing that needs to be done. "We're not staying here."

"Seunghyun."

"I know you and Youngbae and even Seungri have found a way to make it work... But I can't fucking do it anymore. I can't, Jiyong, and I won't put Daesung through it anymore either."

"Seunghyun, calm down."

"Stay in this hellhole if you want. I'm taking Daesung and we're _leaving_."

" _Seunghyun, listen to me_ ," Jiyong says heatedly, "This isn't going to be like last time. I won't fight you on this one."

Neither he nor Jiyong could have predicted that something like this would happen.

"Look at me. Seunghyun, I need you to _look_ at me. This is important."

Seunghyun forces his wandering eyes back to Jiyong, away from the doorway to his and Daesung's room, where he can just make out the shape of Daesung's legs under the blanket. He thought he saw movement.

Jiyong touches his face, his alpha eager for touch and thriving on constant contact with his packmates. "I don't know why Daesung did what he did. I can't imagine what would drive him to..."

Seunghyun's face twists in pain and Jiyong abandons that trail of thought. "But Seunghyun, I trust your intuition, especially after... well. The last time we desperately needed to pick up and leave." He smiles sadly at Seunghyun. "I'm not too proud to admit that you were right back then, and I believe you're right, now. We'll go."

Seunghyun looks at Jiyong-- really looks at him-- and he can see that, behind that brave face of his, what happened with Daesung has hurt him as much as anyone.

They are all suffering here, some more than others. Seunghyun has never fit in, was labeled an outsider beyond hope the moment he passed through the gates alongside his packmates. He has found ways to cope... but it is not good, he grudgingly admits.

Youngbae and Seungri have each found a place among the city's hunting parties, yet it is unhappy work for wolves. Gone is the thrill of the hunt, the satisfaction of sinking teeth into something warm and alive. Seunghyun knows they miss the chase dearly. They all do. Here their old ways have been replaced by a strict adherence to the humans' strange and suffocating rules, the stink of their gunpowder and their-- god, their _wastefulness_. It goes against everything they know and believe in as creatures of the wild.

And the way Seungri walks around in a kind of daze, staring at Daesung like he is dead, like the body buried beneath the pile of blankets is not breathing but is, in fact, quietly rotting away right under their noses. Their youngest carries himself with a haunted quality, drifting through the house with a peculiar detachedness that they have never seen in him before.

Seunghyun leans into Jiyong's touch, relieved that the two of them have come to an agreement so easily. "We thought we had it, Jiyong," he says, voice turning forlorn. "For a while there..."

"I know." Jiyong strokes the side of his face in a manner meant to soothe. "I'm so sorry, Seunghyun."

"This isn't the haven we hoped for," Seunghyun laments. "It's hell."

The look Jiyong turns on him is one of heartbreak. He cares more for the well-being of his packmates than he lets on, feeling their pain just as strongly as if it were his own. Seunghyun is proud to call him his alpha.

Seunghyun's eyes flit again to the door, looking past it to the figure on the bed again. There was definitely movement that time.

"Let's go then," he says suddenly. They have more than they walked in with, but it still isn't much. They could gather all that they own in a matter of hours-- in less time than that, even-- and depart that evening. "Let's leave tonight."

Jiyong gazes at him with such pity in his eyes, and Seunghyun knows the other wolf means well, but he hates being the target of that look. "I don't think leaving is going to be as easy as you think. Just walking out the door, out the gates, just like that?"

"Well, why not?" Seunghyun says irritably.

"Daesung needs time to recover."

"He'll never recover here," Seunghyun mutters, somber at the thought.

"Then _help_ him," Jiyong urges. "Let him rest, give him time to regain his strength. Show him how to find himself again. He'll pull through."

Seunghyun squeezes his eyes shut in pain at the difficult road ahead of them. "And then...?"

"And then, when the time is right, we'll go."

"When the time is right," Seunghyun echoes.

"Yes. You'll know when; I think we all will, somehow." He grins then, giving Seunghyun a cheeky smile. "Trust in your instinct, Seunghyun. You haven't forgotten how, have you?"

Only because he says it with a smile does Seunghyun not slug him across the face-- that and Jiyong is, after all, his alpha. He shoves Jiyong away, forceful but friendly, and lets his momentum carry him back toward that open door, back to the source of his concern, finally close to waking.

 

\--

 

Daesung begins to stir, emerging from his prolonged slumber after what feels to Seunghyun like an age, though in truth only a few days have passed. When he sits up, the blanket slipping down to pool around his lap, Seunghyun wants to cover his body with his own, wants to latch onto him and never let go.

But his mate looks inexplicably brittle, as if even the slightest touch might reduce him to countless tiny, scattered pieces. Seunghyun might lose him again in the folds of the sheets.

Shortly after that he rises and begins to move about the house again, aimless, without intent. One day Seunghyun wakes and finds him gone, vanished again, and he nearly panics-- would Daesung want to _try again?_ He panics right up until the moment his nose leads him outside, where he finds the other wolf sitting cross-legged in the dirt behind the house, his fingers scraping idly through shallow piles of it that he must have gathered up under his hands and shaped for this very purpose.

It would seem strange indeed to find Jiyong or Youngbae occupied like this, or even Seungri. But Seunghyun has seen this from his mate many times before. This is normal behavior for him. He sags in relief.

Daesung has always been prone to quiet displays of boredom exactly like this-- crouching on the ground to pluck at blades of grass, kneeling in the mud to dip his fingers into the cool water of a shallow stream. Collecting fallen leaves from the forest floor when they blanket the ground in the autumn, handling their fragile shapes with such care... before crushing them to dried bits in his palm. It is just one of many ways in which he keeps in constant contact with the earth, needing to experience every tangible thing that makes up the world around him through his own fingertips at least once.

Daesung explores the world with his hands, as all wolves do. And in some small way, to witness him like this, taking an interest in his surroundings and returning to his old ways...

The small flame of hope in Seunghyun's heart grows.

 

\--

 

"Excuse me."

Seunghyun's ears perk up. He turns toward the unfamiliar voice.

"Do you know if-- um, have you seen--"

"Spit it out," Seunghyun says testily, the girl's reluctance to speak only irritating him. He has neither the time nor the patience for this. Whatever she wants from him he does not care. He had to step out for a bit, had errands to run. Now his path takes him back to Daesung... if only this human was not standing in it, blocking his way.

"Is Daesung around?" the girl finally manages to ask, all but shivering under Seunghyun's penetrating stare. "He hasn't been to the gathering in a while. You know, the meetings around the fire? Well, we haven't seen him there, I mean. No one has seen him anywhere," she finishes quietly, looking sad.

Seunghyun narrows his eyes at her. Her small figure, her wet, doe eyes. He never understood why Daesung insisted on spending time with these people. They are a soft folk, and so strange.

And disturbingly curious about wolves, taking an interest in Seunghyun and his packmates that he is entirely uncomfortable with. One man had asked him what it was like to transform under the full moon, and another requested to see his wolf form... his wolf form that he does not have.

"This is my 'wolf form'," Seunghyun had replied, resisting the urge to grab them both and push them into the fire for their impudence, holding their faces to the flames.

Their insolence they can unlearn. For their ignorance, however, there may be no cure.

Since the day he set foot inside these walls the humans here have regarded him as they would an animal in a cage too dangerous to really interact with but fascinating to behold. He certainly feels like one these days, as if every time they speak to him they are poking him with sticks, prodding him with their increasingly invasive questions.

He makes sure to bare his teeth and talons and snarl at them every once in awhile, to keep the fear alive. It is the only way he can hope to survive.

The girl still waits on an answer from him.

"Why?" Seunghyun asks, challenging her to give him an answer that is worth his time. "Why do you care?"

She takes offense at his tone, her pretty face turning dark. "I was just wondering, is all. Some of us miss him. He was nice to have around."

"Nice," Seunghyun scoffs. That has always been Daesung's problem, hasn't it? He is too nice for his own good. "Well, I hope you've had your fill of him. You won't be seeing much of him anymore."

"Why not?" she cries, tears suddenly springing to her wide eyes. _Pathetic_.

He is angry. He is hurt. He is in no mood to pull his punches, not even when it comes to this soft, defenseless creature quivering before him. She asked, he answered. It is more than she deserves.

"You know why," he says. "Go back to your kind, and leave us alone."

The girl purses her lips and tangles her fingers in the flowing fabric of her long skirt, likely hurt by his callousness and disappointed about Daesung, but refusing to let the tears fall. Seunghyun does not wait for her; he whips around and continues on his path home just as he had been before she had interrupted him, a heavy, layered sack in his hands, its contents beginning to show through the longer he lingers here.

He was only passing through anyway. He has somewhere important to be, and someone very important to attend to.

 

\--

 

The days pass, and though the cloud hanging over him remains, it seems to be thinning, becoming lighter, no longer heavy with rain waiting to fall. Daesung emerges from his mental fog and wonder where the days have gone. He wonders how much time has passed while he wandered the caverns of his own mind, exploring by himself through the dark.

But he had not been alone. Seunghyun had been there with him every step, a constant presence that he could always sense no matter how thick the shadows grew, the darkness curling around him like wisps of smoke.

One night Seunghyun brings home the bloodiest slab of meat he can find at the market and slips it into a bucket by their bed. And like they used to do before, Seunghyun feeds it to him, tearing strips with his teeth and passing them from his mouth to Daesung's, heedless of the blood sprinkled on the sheets around them. Daesung is not especially hungry, but he accepts what Seunghyun gives him anyway.

It soon sparks something in him, takes him back to a time when dining with his packmates was an unavoidably messy affair. To Daesung it feels like a memory from a past life, distant and faded. Skin to skin from chest to hip, Seunghyun presses in closer, tucking one mouthful after another into his open mouth and rocking gently against him until, almost before Daesung realizes it, the other is fitted snug inside him.

His body opens effortlessly, the act of allowing Seunghyun into himself as natural as breathing even after so long without, inviting his mate to climb inside like he has done so many times before, like they never stopped. Seunghyun fastens their bodies together with a tenderness Daesung doesn't recognize, handling him like blown glass.

It's strange, Daesung thinks. This isn't like their usual fucking. As Seunghyun moves atop him with such care, looking down at him with such awe, Daesung wonders, is this what the humans meant by "making love"?

Probably not, he decides, his belly comfortably full and copper-scented animal blood smeared all across his and Seunghyun's naked skin. They are not making love, they are making a _mess--_ of their surroundings and of themselves. They're fucking filthy right now and it is _wonderful_. It is the best Daesung has felt in... in...

Longer than he realized. Too long. Somehow he had forgotten how natural this felt, how perfectly it suited him to be so wild and disgusting, with not a care in the world.

Soon Seunghyun plugs Daesung with his knot, reminding him in no uncertain terms not what the presence of the knot says about them as individuals-- _animals? humans? fuck all that_ \-- but what it means for them as a pair, physically unable to part, mated for life.

A werewolf's mate is meant to last a lifetime, Seunghyun is always quick to point out. They are both alive, and they have years ahead of them still.

While Seunghyun bends down and licks at drying streaks of blood across his collarbones, Daesung shifts around the ball of flesh in him, considering the tie that binds them. His knees come up to squeeze at Seunghyun's sides and everything seems to tighten, almost uncomfortably so.

But Daesung doesn't worry. Seunghyun's knot will not hurt him.

Right here, in this moment, with his mate in him and all around him, Daesung truly feels like a beast... and for the first time in a long time he is at peace with it.

"We're like animals," he murmurs, feeling sedated.

"Like wolves," Seunghyun corrects with an unexpected ferocity.

"Is there a difference?"

"Yes. There is."

Daesung settles back and sighs while Seunghyun strokes over his thighs as if starved of the memory of his skin. "I just can't see it anymore."

The other wolf draws back to study him, his dark eyes large and uncharacteristically woeful. He looks like he might break. Daesung doesn't dare speak.

Then Seunghyun falls on him, arms going around his head tightly, wrapping him up in him embrace. "God, Daesung. I was _so fucking scared_ ," he confesses, and Daesung's gut clenches around all the meat Seunghyun had so carefully fed him.

"I'm sorry." He knows full well that it isn't nearly enough.

"I will never leave you," Seunghyun promises him, the words spoken into Daesung's hair, "So don't you _ever_ fucking leave me like... especially not like that. Never like that. You hear me?"

Daesung realizes they are trembling. Both of them. "I hear you," he says in a small voice.

Seunghyun draws back to cup his face. "I still don't know why but-- promise me, Daesung. _Swear_ to me that you won't."

Daesung has never seen such raw pain in the other's eyes, his mate just as wounded inside as he is.

He did that.

The dam breaks.

"I'm _sorry_ ," Daesung cries, the flood of emotion catching him completely by surprise. He had not even felt the cracks forming; one moment he had been drowsy and content, the next reaching for Seunghyun in sudden despair. "I'm sorry, I'm _so sorry_ , Seunghyun, I'll never-- fuck, Seunghyun, I just--"

He wraps arms around his mate, his elbows locking around Seunghyun's neck and dragging him down to his level, down to where he can reach him. Daesung does not have the words for… He can't express... Anything he says is going to feel woefully inadequate, _“I love you so much”_ never enough to convey the vast depths of what he feels for the other man.

"I won't leave you, Seunghyun. I'm.. I'm with you to the end. I'm yours. Forever," Daesung vows, meaning every word of it with every fiber of his being. He is beyond sorry that he ever tried. He wasn't in control of himself at the time-- doesn't know what came over him or why he cracked, he thought he was stronger than that-- but he is no less shamed by it.

...There is something they need to address.

"But... Seunghyun." He gathers up what little strength he has and forces the words out. "What about you? You... is there..." He swallows thickly. "Is there someone else?"

The words hurt going out as much as they seem to hurt Seunghyun going in, judging by the way he goes still over him. He digs his fingers into Seunghyun's shoulders, hoping, praying that he will not pull away. He needs to feel him, the press of his bare skin, the weight of him on him, the-- the heat of him _in_ him. His thighs flex around Seunghyun's hips, his body clamping down selfishly around the knot filling him.

"You..." Seunghyun blinks at him, looking as lost as Daesung feels. "Shit, you did. You smelled it on me. I knew it."

Daesung waits for more.

"Is that why you...?"

"That was... part of it." He closes his eyes and just breathes.

Seunghyun's head falls to Daesung's chest and he begins pressing quick, shallow kisses into his skin. "Daesung, Daesung. That meant nothing, it was _nothing_ ," Seunghyun pleads. "It was a mistake. I'm so sorry. Please believe me. I shouldn't have, I feel so fucking awful-- I--"

Tears burn behind Daesung's closed lids; he wrestles them back. "Was it the first time?"

"The _only_ time."

"Why," he says, hating the way his voice shakes.

Seunghyun's tongue darts out to wet dry lips. "I missed you. I wanted him to be you."

"Did you get what needed out of it?" Daesung asks, needing to know yet fearing the answer.

"Not at all," Seunghyun groans against him. "It made me feel worse. I was wrong. I was so wrong. I'll never stray again."

"Did you knot--"

" _No_ ," Seunghyun answers before Daesung has even finished speaking. " _No._ I would never. I didn't even... I didn't even go very far with him, I swear. I couldn't."

Daesung exhales, the pain of Seunghyun's betrayal draining out of him as easily as his lungful of air. "I believe you."

Seunghyun attacks him with his mouth. " _Daesung_ ," he moans, lapping hungrily at him, his lips and teeth and tongue turning his skin bright red wherever they go. "I only ever want you. I need _you_."

He shakes in Daesung's arms, his tremors so small and suppressed that if they were not fused together down below, Seunghyun's cock solidly sheathed in him, Daesung might not have felt it at all. Daesung is intimately aware of how Seunghyun fears losing him. To lose Daesung would destroy him, Daesung knows this.

The feeling is mutual. This man is everything to him, his beginning and his end. After all they have been through Daesung cannot imagine living without him. He will not release him so easily.

Acting purely on instinct, he surges up and sinks his teeth into the place that connects Seunghyun's neck and shoulder, for the very first time in their many years together giving his mate a matching mark of his own.

Seunghyun goes rigid all over, a choked sound falling from his lips... but he allows it. Daesung presses in closer, buries his sharp canines further into the other's flesh and wills Seunghyun to recognize this for what it is.

Just as he has pledged himself to Seunghyun, Seunghyun must pledge himself to him.

"I'm yours," Seunghyun rumbles. "Only yours. Always have been."

Daesung digs in and thinks, with his mouth ful, _until the end of our days._

The moments stretch on and he hangs on, Seunghyun's blood seeping out from under his lips, pooling around his teeth and under his tongue. It is strange and terrifying-- strangely terrifying-- that Seunghyun lets him do this, but he resolves not to let go, not to give up without a fight, not this time. Something in him _needs_ this, needs to anchor himself in Seunghyun's very skin, the wolf in him calling for a pact sealed in blood.

Eventually Seunghyun has to go down with him to avoid losing a sizeable chunk of flesh. He cradles the back of Daesung's head in one hand as Daesung takes what he needs through this act between them. It's sloppy, it's clumsy, probably painful in a way it should not be because Daesung has never done this before and he isn't thinking straight right then.

"Daesung," Seunghyun says, voice tight with pain and some other unidentifiable emotion.

His fingers tighten in Daesung's hair as if to draw him away and Daesung whimpers, jaws closing just that much more. Seunghyun's face contorts in further pain, but still he bears it.

"Okay," Seunghyun concedes. "Okay, you win. Just... _Fuck_ , Daesung."

Unlike Seunghyun, Daesung has rarely felt the need to put any part of himself inside the other, neither claws nor teeth nor cock. Now, in some small capacity, with his wolf's teeth embedded in Seunghyun's yielding flesh, Daesung thinks he finally understands the appeal.

In the end he leaves Seunghyun with an exceptionally nasty-looking bite wound, the outline of his teeth defined and dark, his skin bruising as blood pools underneath. And yet, Daesung finds that he is proud of the mark he made. Seunghyun seems proud of him for making it, despite how its terrible appearance. Perhaps _because_ of its terrible appearance.

It is his punishment and his pride. Daesung figures his one big mark makes up for all the small scars Seunghyun has left on him over the years.

He should never have doubted. He is Seunghyun's, and Seunghyun is his.

 

\--

 

Shortly after that Daesung opens up at last to Seunghyun about what had been done to him, pouring out what he remembers of the ordeal, the events of that evening as vivid to him as Seunghyun's scars written into his skin. But he cannot talk about it there inside the walls, can't spill his secrets over the sheets, his heart pumping his anguish out of him as thick and staining as blood straight from his veins.

"Take me outside the walls," he says, a new light burning in his eyes.

It takes some planning, but Seunghyun grants him his request. Spring is just around the corner, winter's chill hanging by a thread as fine as a spider's web, the air around them brisk. Daesung likes the way it bites at the lining of his throat with every breath inhale, fills his lungs and wakes him up inside. Inside is so stuffy. This is where he is meant to be, outside where he can sense new life just beneath the soil, waiting to sprout and be seen.

He feels revitalized, refreshed, renewed... and it is with this mindset that he gathers his thoughts while Seunghyun waits patiently.

Like a valve is opened, everything comes pouring out of him. Daesung reveals the devastating truth of what had happened to him-- as well as what he had almost lost.

He feels a gentle touch to his tail, and when he glances up at Seunghyun he finds him with tear tracks cutting crystalline paths down his cheeks.

"You're crying," Daesung observes with a peculiar detachedness.

"I'm not." Seunghyun swipes fingers over a cheek and looks baffled when they come away wet. "I am."

"I should be crying," Daesung says, more to himself than to the man beside him. This is a side of Seunghyun he rarely witnesses.

"Why aren't you?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'm done with crying." Daesung picks idly at the grass before him, turning the blades over and over in his fingers. "I'm all out of tears."

Seunghyun curses and reaches for him, his tears falling in earnest now, one after another. He scrubs at his face angrily. "What is this? Damnit."

"Maybe you're more human than you thought."

"No," Seunghyun insists and latches onto Daesung, pulling him close.

"Your humanity is showi--"

"Shut _up_ ," Seunghyun hisses with his usual stubbornness. "I don't want to hear it. All this talk of humans and wolves... Fuck, I'm so tired of it all, of this place, of _everything_."

Daesung chews on the inside of his lip and says nothing.

Seunghyun nuzzles into the side of his neck and says sadly, "I wish you had told me about this as soon as it happened. I could have... I could have done something for you. Never would have let things get so bad."

"I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"I--" Daesung pauses. Shrugs. "I just couldn't." It is distressing enough to speak of now. It was impossible then.

"I knew you were hiding something. I begged you not to," Seunghyun mourns, petting his tail with such reverence, such _care_. Daesung wants to turn to him and curl up inside him, warm and protected. "How can I help you when you won't let me know that you're hurting?"

"You knew I was... hurt," Daesung points out. "I tried to hide it, but you knew."

"I didn't know _why_ ," Seunghyun replies, face painted in anguish. " _God_ , Daesung. You have no idea. You are so much stronger than you think," he says, taking Daesung's face in both hands and turning him to face him. "You have strength of your own, but if you ever need me-- _ever--_ I will always be there for you. Always."

After everything, after all his hardship and pain, Daesung knows one thing: human, wolf, or something in between-- he could be a hideous monster and it would make no difference-- Seunghyun does not care what Daesung is as long as he has him.

"Seunghyun," Daesung says, knowing how worrisome this is going to sound but past the point of caring. "Seunghyun, what am I? What are we?"

The other's eyes ignite. "We're _wolves_. We've always been wolves. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Daesung closes his eyes and lets Seunghyun speak, his deep, rumbling voice comforting. It hurts, but he needs to hear this.

"I guess they got to me in the end," Daesung says quietly. More than just their words had found its way inside him.

"This place is choking the life out of us all," Seunghyun tells him, voice full of conviction. "Can't you see what they've done to you? They planted a seed of doubt the day you set foot inside those walls--" He gestures vaguely in the direction of the city, somewhere at their backs. "--and it grew and grew. Now you're all tangled up inside."

 _I'm not_ , Daesung wants to say, wants to insist he is okay. But what good would that do him now that the truth has been laid bare? Daesung is no stranger to pain; he has been hurt before. But not like this. Never like this.

He can't carry this alone any longer. He can't, he doesn't have to, and he won't. So he gives it over to Seunghyun.

"They hurt me," he confesses, scarcely a whisper.

Wolves are uncomplicated creatures, attacking the outside and leaving it at that. Their surface wounds, if they are not meant to kill, heal readily enough. Humans, though... humans go for the soft insides. They leave their prey to bleed out with time, looking on with interest as their victim suffers a slow death or hurts so deeply that he must end it himself.

Wolves injure the body; humans injure the mind and break the spirit.

"I think," Daesung says, "that we had no idea what we were up against when we attempted to settle here."

Seunghyun nods briskly. "I've spoken with Jiyong. We're going to leave as soon as you're fully recovered."

"Why wait?" Daesung wonders. "The last time we picked up and left we were practically dead on our feet, all of us. But we made it somehow."

"Well," Seunghyun admits, "There might be more to it than that. We used two of our allotments to come out here today. We'll need five again before we can all leave together. It'll take some time."

"Oh."

"Just lay low for awhile, okay? Take some time to... to heal."

Daesung stares up at the sky, his eyes open but unseeing, turned inward, looking inside himself. He says, "I don't know how to heal from this."

If he is tangled up, he doesn't know how to unwind. If he is poisoned, he doesn't know where to find the antidote. If he is choking, he has forgotten how to breathe. He does not know how to handle this new depth of emotion.

If this is what is means to become human, Daesung wants nothing to do with it.

"I don't know how either, but we'll figure it out together." Seunghyun pulls Daesung close. "I want to help you, if you'll only let me."

Daesung nods, accepting this, and finally the tears come, hot against his chilled skin.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: [Hymn For The Missing](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDZG9CQWNYc1pfSUU) (Seunghyun)  
> [Pieces](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDdHI3RUVsT0VtTjg) (Daesung)


	8. Chapter 8

Daesung can no longer ignore the haunted looks Seungri turns on him. He puts the other off for as long as he can until he can take Seungri's quiet despair no more.

"Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

Seungri stares at him like he has just seen a ghost. "I've seen you dead."

"I'm right here, Seungri," Daesung says kindly. Patiently. "I'm alive. I'm okay. Thanks to you."

"But for a few minutes you _weren't_."

Daesung opens his mouth to speak, but-- nothing comes out. What can he say to that? Instead he only smiles pleasantly at Seungri, hoping he sees his gratitude in it and understands that there is nothing to fear; Daesung is not going anywhere.

But Seungri does not calm at all. To Daesung's dismay, he does quite the opposite.

In the span of a second his face collapses, his sad eyes filling with sudden tears, and he runs at Daesung so quickly Daesung has no time to act. He has barely opened his arms when the other wolf barrels into them, clinging to him like he might be picked up and carried away on the breeze.

"What happened to you?" he cries into Daesung's shoulder.

He hears the unspoken half of Seungri's question: _could it happen to me too?_

"Oh, Seungri," Daesung says. "I just... I got a little lost in my head. I'm okay now." Seungri does not need to know about the attack. It was hard enough telling Seunghyun; he can't share it with Seungri too, not yet, maybe not ever.

"Don't fucking do that ever again, okay?!" Seungri snarls, but there is no real heat behind his words, no anger there, only pain. "I followed you on a whim that night. I saw you go and I just... I wanted to see what you were up to, that's all. I was bored." Daesung seals arms over Seungri's back and hugs him close as he whimpers and cries. "I was fucking _bored_. Jiyong wouldn't play with me so I went after you, and out the door you went. And then..."

"And then you saved my life," Daesung reminds him, feeling a little teary himself but choking it back for the other's sake. Seungri is not usually prone to displays of emotion like this. Even when Seunghyun had nearly _ended_ him in a fit of jealousy, he had not wept. Not where they could see or hear it, anyway.

He must be feeling the effects of this wretched place too. In terms of how well he had taken to living among humans, Seungri was second only to Daesung. He might be susceptible. He might be next.

They really do need to get out of here, and soon.

Seungri sobs, "You're giving me too much credit. I saved your life by accident."

"It doesn't matter how it happened, Seungri." The other wolf pushes his face into the front of his shirt, fast growing damp. Daesung shushes him and hugs him closer. "You'll be okay. We'll all be okay."

They can't keep fighting this. They have to run from it. Wolves hate to flee-- most wolves, anyway-- but escape is their only hope for survival. Daesung had bent under the pressure, had bent over backwards in his best effort to adapt to their new life, and still he had broken. He fears that if they remain, the same fate may be in store for the rest of them.

 

\--

 

Seunghyun has Daesung right where he wants him: flat on his front, face-down on their bed, his fingers threaded in the sheets while Seunghyun slides down, down, ever closer to that hidden place on his mate that Seunghyun loves to worship, kneeling over him as if in prayer. He nudges nudges his tail aside and mouths at the curve of his ass, soft skin blanketing strong muscle.

They don't do this often, but tonight Seunghyun has a purpose and a plan.

While Daesung wraps arms around his pillow and waits for it, Seunghyun works his way downward and inward, seeking out that secret place between the other's legs, where it is dark and damp and his scent is strong, his skin burning hot to the touch. Already, feeling Daesung's heat, he wants to replace his tongue with his cock, throbbing insistently between his own legs though they've barely begun. He wants to take his mate by the hips and sheathe himself in that scorching promise of pleasure and just take...

But tonight is not for him; it is for Daesung. Seunghyun imagines that every lap of his tongue wipes away the trauma of what his attackers had done, visualizes himself cleansing him of all remaining traces of the animal they had used to do it.

He cannot erase the memory, but perhaps he can replace it.

He reaches Daesung's hole, a tight pucker of satiny skin awaiting his attention-- and oh, he will give it such attention. He will devote his mouth to Daesung tonight, eating the other out until he is tearful with pleasure.

At the first touch of his tongue Daesung jerks under him. Seunghyun grins wickedly and lets his tongue loll out again, swiping over the rim, tasting with every intent to devour. At the other end of the bed Daesung makes a soft, needy sound even as his hole flutters and shrinks away from Seunghyun's ravishing.

When Seunghyun gives attention to Daesung's cock, it swells and rises to meet him. When he laves attention on his hole, the soft pucker of skin flinches away as if retreating from him. Seunghyun cannot help pursuing it; he does love a good chase.

He gains momentum as he goes, pushing his face in closer and putting his lips to work too, coating Daesung's ass and his own face in a film of saliva until his mate is slick and nearly ready for him. Daesung will open up to him soon enough. When he does, Seunghyun will dive in and drive him _wild_.

A moment later Daesung jerks under him again, but not in the usual way. Seunghyun flattens his tongue and licks over him long and hard, and-- Daesung seems to recoil. Seunghyun frowns and lifts his head to check on his mate.

He is crying, and not in pleasure as Seunghyun had hoped.

"What's wrong?" Seunghyun cries, alarmed. He sits up. "I didn't I hurt you, did I?" He doesn't know how he could have. This act between them never brings Daesung anything but pleasure, it's the gentlest way Seunghyun knows to please him-- and he had barely begun, anyway.

"No," he hears. "No, I just... What's happened to me? What's wrong with me?" Daesung mumbles, his face half-turned into the pillow, and Seunghyun looks at him helplessly.

"Nothing," he says after a beat of silence. "There's nothing wrong--"

"Then what is _this_ ," Daesung hisses, wiping at the tears flowing freely down his face. "God, these-- _tears_. Where are they even coming from? I never knew I could cry so much or so often. I hate this."

He is still trying to cope with his emerging humanity, is still trying to make peace with it somehow. But Seunghyun doesn't want him to cope with it. He wants him to kill it and bury the body deep, never to rise or see the light of day again.

"There is nothing wrong with _you_ ," Seunghyun murmurs, speaking the words against the sweat-dampened skin of Daesung's lower back, the soft hairs of his mate's tail tickling his chin and throat. "There is everything wrong with _them_. This place. These people." He nips at the skin at the base of Daesung's tail, just where the hair begins, and Daesung shudders underneath him. That has always been a sensitive spot for him.

"I feel different. I feel changed. Not... myself. Seunghyun," Daesung says, a note of panic creeping into his voice. He twists around and flashes Seunghyun a wild look. "Seunghyun, I'm a wolf. I know it. But... I don't feel much like one these days."

_I'm trying to help you with that_ , Seunghyun thinks with a profound sadness.

"Seunghyun," he says, sounding as pitiful as Seunghyun has ever heard him, "I want to feel like a wolf again. Is that even possible? Am I too far gone?" He turns his face into the pillow and Seunghyun almost doesn't hear it as he says, "Am I stuck like this?"

"You are not _too far gone_. Of course it's possible," Seunghyun growls, his voice gone husky with emotion and righteous anger on his mate's behalf. "You can't undo what you are. No one can just... take that away from you. What do you think this is?" He grabs Daesung's tail and tugs, hard enough to make a point but not so hard that it hurts him.

In his hand Daesung's tail curls, the hairs at the tip brushing Seunghyun's wrist. "They could have easily taken that away," Daesung says soberly. "They tried to."

For a split second Seunghyun is blinded by a pulse of white-hot rage He does not realize he is squeezing Daesung's tail until the other man whimpers in pain, his tail twitching sharply. He drops it.

"And you showed them, didn't you? What they were messing with?"

"Yeah..."

"You're a wolf, Daesung," Seunghyun says hotly. He bends and puts his face to Daesung's ass again, breathing the words against his skin. "I won't ever fucking let you forget it."

With that, he plunges back into Daesung with renewed vigor, intent on wielding Daesung's pleasure like a weapon to cut and slash away at any lingering doubts about who or what he is.

" _Oh_ ," Daesung breathes as Seunghyun's tongue dips into his hole, "That's so-- _yes--_ " the skin parting eagerly around his wet tongue, " _Please_ , Seunghyun," and Seunghyun licks and licks him there until Daesung is squirming under his tongue, lost to pleasure at what is happening down _here_ at _this_ end of him, at how Seunghyun is unraveling him one masterful touch at a time.

He will ensure his mate never again fears this part of himself.

Daesung has taken to crying softly again, even as he pushes back against him, and at the sound of his mournful pleas something swells in Seunghyun, something too large to contain. He shoves his face against the other man harder, using his fingers to spread him, holding him wide open while he works him over feverishly.

Soon his jaw begins to ache, his chin and all around his mouth wet and tacky with his own drying saliva, but the sweet melody of Daesung's satisfaction spurs him on. He flattens his tongue and swipes the broad side of it over his mate's opening again and again, relentlessly pursuing even as the skin under him seems to jump away from his touch.

It is a fickle thing, this part of Daesung, his hole shying away demurely with every flick of Seunghyun's tongue before suddenly flaring open around him, all at once welcoming him inside. In the same way, here Daesung seems at first so delicate... but Seunghyun knows very well the rough treatment this part of his mate can withstand.

After all, _gentle_ is just not their style. He and Daesung are wolves, and it is not in a wolf's nature to fuck _gently_.

"Oh, oh, Seunghy-- _ah_ , so _good--_ " All throughout, Daesung babbles softly to himself-- or maybe to Seunghyun, he cannot tell and it does not matter.

He will not stop this until Daesung hands over the reins of his control. Seunghyun will gently chip away his composure until the moment he falls apart-- and then he will catch him, this time fitting the pieces back together _right_.

Under him Daesung jolts suddenly, his hips pushing against the bedsheets like if he tries hard enough he can push _through_ it, spearing the sheets and the soft mattress with his by now fully erect cock-- Seunghyun reaches under him to feel, needing the weight of him in his hands.

" _More_ ," Daesung gasps out and doesn't seem to know which way to move-- down and forward, into Seunghyun's hand, or up and back, against Seunghyun's mouth.

Seunghyun cups Daesung's balls, the sac soft and drawn up tight in his arousal, and beyond that finds the shaft of his cock, hard and heavy with blood. It is a little awkward from this angle, reaching between his legs from behind instead of around, but Seunghyun wraps long fingers around Daesung's rigid length and strokes just once, like pulling it up and out of him.

That is all it takes. Daesung's orgasm rips through him, his back bowing under Seunghyun's open mouth.

Seunghyun pets over Daesung's back as he comes down, his mate's skin shining with sweat, until at last Daesung says in a watery voice, "Whatever this is... I don't want it anymore. Please, just... take it away." He hides his face in the circle of his own arms, whispering, "I don't want to be like this anymore."

Seunghyun wishes it was that simple, as they are meant to be simple creatures. Nature did not intend for them to be... whatever this is. He wishes he could gather it all up and take it away, just like that, would love nothing more than to reach in and pluck it out of Daesung like pulling a thorn.

He does not know how to help Daesung with this, not really. He can help with wounds on Daesung's body, washing and wrapping and keeping them clean until the other's body takes over and finishes on its own... But what about the suffering in his spirit, the damage in his heart? About those kinds of injuries, what can Seunghyun do? What more can he  possibly do?

 

\--

 

A storm is coming. Seunghyun stands outside and watches the clouds gather in the distance, piling high into the sky, climbing ever upward until they have reached their limit, their tops leveling off.

A mature thunderstorm. And judging by the wind which brings him the faint scent of rain from afar, it is heading their way. Excitement ripples through him.

For Jiyong, it takes some convincing.

"You've already used two of our allotments for the month," Jiyong says, looking uncertain. "I don't know, Seunghyun. How much longer are you willing to wait?"

"Look, I want to leave more than all of us combined." Seunghyun stares the other man down, daring him to challenge that claim. "But... I need to do this."

Jiyong rubs at his eyes. He seems so endlessly tired these days. "I know you and Daesung love storms. But how much will this really help? Tell me what's so important about it."

"See that?" Seunghyun swings his arm out and points dramatically at the approaching storm growing increasingly visible over the tops of the city's high walls. "That is us. We are that storm."

Jiyong only stares at him, clearly waiting for more, so Seunghyun forges ahead, letting the words pour out of him just as the coming rain will soon pour out over the land, inspiring life.

"We are werewolves, Jiyong, at heart as wild and reckless and unstoppable as that thundercloud, and we will _rain down calamity_ on anyone who stands in our way," he says slowly and severely, the act alone of speaking the words aloud lending him strength, reviving in Seunghyun a sense of power that he has been too long without. "Right? You remember living like that once, don't you. That is how we are meant to be."

Jiyong gives him a considering look. Seunghyun can see the fire in his eyes, his words sparking something familiar in him. "So about Daesung," he says, "You can't just bring him out here and show him the sky, tell him what you just told me?"

Seunghyun deflates. "No. This is the best I can do. The earth will speak to him more deeply than I ever could ever hope to."

The other wolf's hands go back to his eyes, fingers digging in, indecision delaying his answer.

"Please, Jiyong," Seunghyun says, knowing what is at stake here. He is no longer above begging if it will get him what he wants, what he knows Daesung needs.

So Jiyong concedes, leveling him with a look so full of skepticism that Seunghyun promises he will bring Daesung back made whole again. _You just wait and see._

Within the hour he and Daesung are outside the city walls for the second time in as many weeks, and by the time they are far away enough that the trees obscure the walls looming over them, the sky has gone dark, the clouds hanging low and the air thick and heavy with the imminent promise of rain.

Seunghyun tugs playfully at the sleeves of Daesung's long shirt. "When was the last time you were caught in the rain?"

"It's been a while," Daesung admits, peering up into the sky with rapt fascination. "Too long, I think."

And that is the truth, isn't it? It was once a common occurrence for them. When the rains came they would stream out of their shelter and offer themselves up to the violence of the storm, bringing both life and destruction from above.

Here, though, they run from the rain, scurrying inside to escape it simply because, well... everyone else is doing it. Seunghyun thinks it's time they faced their old friend once again.

Seunghyun misses being caught in the rain. Misses the way standing under a heavy downpour feels like being submerged underwater while still retaining his ability breathe. Misses how, although it pummels him from all sides, the water does not hurt him. The rain makes him feel small and large at the same time, reminding him what he can withstand.

Daesung could use the same reminder.

They are far enough from the city's walls to breathe a little easier when the storm arrives. Swiftly, with very little warning-- Seunghyun must have miscalculated the speed of its approach-- the initial rush of wind blows in and crashes over them, whipping all around them, tugging them in every direction. To Seunghyun it is both exhilarating and uplifting to surrender to that kind of power, throwing wide his arms as it overtakes him.

At his side Daesung is similarly affected, the wind making a mess of his shaggy hair worse than Seunghyun or any of their packmates could even if they tried. He laughs, euphoric, and Seungyun grins back at him madly, the violence of the storm overhead mirrored in his his expression. He knows he must look inhuman, the way his lips stretch across his pointed teeth-- but that is the point of all this, is it not?

After that comes the rain. Past the treetops they cannot see it advancing, but they can hear it. The sound grows, rising in intensity until at last it reaches them, thick curtains of water drenching them in an instant. Seunghyun can barely see through it to where Daesung stands little more than an arm’s distance away.

Daesung turns his face to the sky and laughs again, and to Seunghyun the sound is a miracle. Then he slips in the mud and goes down, all smiles even as his hair and clothes and skin are painted brown. Seconds later, Seunghyun joins him.

Under savage skies they roll and wrestle in the mud, Seunghyun running his hands up Daesung's body, pushing his shirt up as he goes. He is well versed in the form beneath his palms, his fingers reaching for the familiar dips and peaks of the other man's finely sculpted body. The give of Daesung's soft belly, the solid ridge of bone where his ribcage begins, the swell of his muscled chest. Seunghyun's palm passes over a nipple, the tightened nub standing on end in the chill of the pouring rain, and he cannot resist rubbing over it, just once, Daesung's lids falling closed to hone in on the sensation.

Seunghyun knows every nerve ending under his mate's skin, has spent countless hours, days, years, studying him thoroughly and intimately, committing to memory how to make the most of every inch.

Surrounded by sheets of rain Seunghyun kisses Daesung fiercely, pushing himself into his lover in a new way, encouraging the man under him to receive his breath, driving this gift of life into him just as the sky drives the rain into surface of the earth.

With water streaming all around them, the roar of it drowning them, the weight of it crashing over their vulnerable bodies, Seunghyun feels as if he has been transported back to the river with Daesung. Daesung is underwater, again he is drowning... but this time Seunghyun is there with him, sealing his mate's lips with his own, pushing air into his lungs, keeping Daesung afloat and alive when all the world around him drags him down into its depths. Enticing him into darkness. Drawing him down irreversibly into death.

"I love you. I'm never letting you go," he says in a whisper, knowing that amid the thunder and the rain, Daesung will not hear his words... but against his lips he will feel them.

Only when the rain lets up does Seunghyun follow suit. Breathless in the best of ways, beneath him Daesung looks alive again, the fire of joy in his eyes reignited, reawoken, reborn. He pants for air and gazes up at Seunghyun like he is seeing him for the first time, memorizing his face, his dark eyes uncommonly wide and raking over Seunghyun's features with such wonder that Seunghyun can do nothing but curl fingers into Daesung's hair and let Daesung marvel at him, giving himself up to the other's reverent gaze.

A low rumble of thunder in the distance-- the storm has moved on without them, its work here done-- breaks them from their trance.

"I'll kill them for what they did to you," Seunghyun says suddenly, without preamble. "I know what you're going to say. You'll tell me not to fight, but--"

"I want you to."

Seunghyun gapes at Daesung. "You do?"

"Yes. They might do the same to others," Daesung says with an intensity that is calm and collected. "They probably already have, after me. Maybe even before me. It felt like... like they'd done it before."

Seunghyun understands. Who knows how many spirits those wretched humans have broken? How many wolves have they have struck at like vipers and sent down a similar path of self-destruction, fleeing their own festering wounds?

"I should go with you. I should be there when it happens."

Seunghyun cocks his head to one side. It's a strange request coming from Daesung. "Do you want to?"

"...No," Daesung admits. His eyes drift shut in remembered pain.

"Then let me take care of it."

Out here, they have to be no one but themselves. No one can tell them what to do, how to act, who to be. Out here, they have found themselves again, the rain washing away their doubts and fears which clung to them like sludge, the power of the storm scouring their wild hearts clean of all the dust and grime they picked up along the way.

Uncaged, unrestrained, uninhibited. That is how they are meant to live.

 

\--

 

"Teach me a song."

It is early enough in the morning that the dawn has not yet broken, their world cradled in darkness for a while longer. In his arms Daesung stirs and says blearily, his voice thick with interrupted sleep, "Mm... What?"

"You wanted to hear me sing, before. I'm ready to try again." Seunghyun explains, embarrassed but emboldened at the thought of doing this thing that he knows Daesung wants from him and has waited on. If he still wants it.

Daesung is silent for a moment as he mulls over his request. "They only taught me a few. I don't... really want to sing them, to be honest."

Seunghyun frowns, but he understands. He tucks his face into the back of the other wolf's neck and tries again. "Can you make something up?"

"Right now? I like singing, but not first thing in the morning." Daesung complains, rolling so that his face is pressed into his pillow. "Maybe later."

So Seunghyun steels himself and does what he had seen Daesung do before. He drops his self-imposed restraints, lets go of his pride, and sings. It is a song without words, the tune developing as he goes. He pushes the sound up and out of his throat, resisting the urge to cringe as it leaves him, his face hot with embarrassment and an insecurity he does not often allow himself to feel.

Only for this man in his arms would he do something like this.

But while his voice is not as pure or effortless as Daesung's, the other man seems to appreciate it. Soon he is humming along, attempting to harmonize with Seunghyun. He struggles at first-- they both do-- while he feels out the highs and lows of Seunghyun's song and determines where best to join him.

Hoping to encourage him, Seunghyun tightens his arms around his mate and slows the tempo, keeping his part simple so that Daesung can take the lead. He is far better suited for this anyway.

It seems to do the trick. To Seunghyun's delight Daesung is soon singing, taking flight through song, his smooth singing voice gliding out of him like a bird from a cage, as if he cannot help himself now that he has begun. His confidence grows and the soft notes float out of him easily, his airy tenor melding flawlessly with Seunghyun's deep baritone as they meet and separate, their voices merging then parting again, their combined efforts creating something greater and more beautiful than themselves.

Before long their soft voices die down, coming to rest with a natural ease, no practice needed. They have just completed their first song together, the first of many, and it delivers Seunghyun a comforting truth: that no matter what happens to them throughout the remainder of their lives, he and Daesung will always be more in sync than they realize.

Like like the sun emerging from behind an enormous cloud, Seunghyun sees the truth of who they are. They have lived on the promise of silver linings for too long.

They are alive, and it is time for them to live.

 

\--

 

Tonight is a new moon, the blackest night of the month. Under the cover of darkness Seunghyun makes his move at last.

His packmates are all gathered back at the house. Daesung know what he is setting out to do.

"I'll be back soon," Seunghyun promises him. "Are you sure you don't want to come with us?"

"I'm sure," Daesung replies. "...Be careful."

"Nothing about what I'm going to do to them will be _careful_ ," Seunghyun says. "And that's a promise."

Daesung smiles then, and it is the most dangerous expression Seunghyun has ever seen on him. He cannot resist pulling the other into a kiss-- strength for Daesung, strength for _him--_ even as Jiyong taps him on the back and says they had better get going.

Minutes later Seunghyun disappears out the door, Jiyong close at his back. When they return they will no longer be prisoners. Not Daesung, not him, not one of them.

It is time.

 

\--

 

He slaughters them all.

Conveniently, they share one household, four monsters wearing the skins of humans living together under one roof. For Seunghyun it's easy pickings. In his wake he leaves behind a grisly scene, taking extra care-- though he told Daesung he wouldn't-- to smear the walls with their blood and leave their innards strewn throughout the house. Without their weapons humans are so soft, so weak. Their fragile bellies open easily under his claws, their blood spilling out and slicking the floor so that they slip and fall and crash down in a product of their own making.

It is almost poetic, Seunghyun thinks. Poetic justice.

That is fine by Seunghyun. Their clumsiness makes his work that much easier. And all the while, Jiyong stands by silently, a stoic shadow overseeing his work, his dark eyes watching impassively. He is only there for backup, after all.

Seunghyun will not call on him for help. This is his punishment to dole out. Seunghyun has come to avenge Daesung, and he is going to do his worst.

Their entrails he pulls out in ropes and wraps around their necks, pulling the slimy flesh taut until their faces turn red, then purple, then blue. With a little coaxing he learns which of them had led the assault, which worthless _bastard_ among them had planned it and led the charge. Every band of thugs has a leader, and he intends to give this one the special treatment-- when he finds him.

In their final moments they give him what he wants without a fight, not a trace of loyalty in their dying breaths. Seunghyun smirks when he sees him.

The one with the ragged claw marks scarred into his face. He should have known.

"How do you like it," he growls at the vile creature under him, choking him harder. "Your own disgusting insides a rope around your neck. Does it hurt? I hope it does. I hope this is the worst you've ever suffered, you rotten _son of a bitch_."

The man pinned under him opens his mouth wide-- to scream, to gasp for air, to speak, who knows? Who cares? Not Seunghyun. He yanks his makeshift noose tighter until the man's eyes bulge out, the whites of his eyes rapidly turning red with broken blood vessels.

"You're wondering why I'm doing this, aren't you," Seunghyun says, his own voice as sinister as he has ever hear it. "You remember that wolf you attacked? Yeah?"

The man gurgles at him. Seunghyun shows him his teeth, everything about him as predatory as they come.

"He was _mine_."

Mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, the man searches for air where he will find none. Seunghyun adjusts his grip, the slick intestines sliding through his grasp if he does not pay attention.

"Look at you, you can't even speak," Seunghyun ridicules. He leans in close and growls, "Who's the animal now?"

The marks Daesung gave him in his one true act of self-defense have healed poorly, the gashes knitting themselves back together in a rugged fashion, filling in the gaps with flesh that does not match the skin around it, the scars raised and ugly. Daesung did this, and Seunghyun is so proud of him for it.

He wishes he had done more, had taken it a step further, or beyond. But his mate has never had the stomach for such unnecessary violence...

That is why Seunghyun is here in his place.

Feeling inspired and cruel beyond measure, Seunghyun unsheathes his own talons and plunges them into his victim's face and rakes them over the old injuries, following in the lines Daesung left for him, treating them as a guide. He takes his time, digging the ends in deep, deep enough to scrape bone. Under him his prey thrashes; Seunghyun knows the man would be screaming if he had any air in his lungs to do so.

He draws his lips back in a menacing grin and drops his fangs, ensuring that his sharp-toothed grin is the last thing this vermin sees before his body becomes food for worms.

"There," Seunghyun declares once done, sitting back and letting the body in his grip fall to the floor. "It's a good look on you, and this time you won't heal." All around him is a mess, it's all a mess, blood and guts littering the ground, and it is everything he came here to accomplish.

He wishes Daesung had come with him to see this. If the other wolf had joined him here Seunghyun might have toned down the violence for his sake. Seunghyun would have been content to let him just watch, would not have forced him to take part... much.

It might bring him some closure. It changes nothing of what happened to Daesung, but it at least makes _him_ feel a little better.

But it is just Seunghyun tonight, alone with his mate's tormentors. These cowards attacked a gentle soul, the kindest, most self-sacrificing wolf Seunghyun has ever known. Their fatal error was forgetting to factor in the wrathful vengeance of said wolf's mate.

In Daesung's absence Seunghyun will be his violence. He will be Daesung's rage. And, with curved claws all too eager for bloodshed, he will be the reaper who comes to collect his revenge.

 

\--

 

Back home in the dead of night, Seunghyun ushers Daesung to the kitchen and drops something on the surface of their table. Daesung stares down at the thing, blood seeping into the wood grain. Lying there on the table, wet and soft and red, it looks innocuous enough, like any other heart.

Narrowed eyes return to Seunghyun, studying him.

"I don't..."

"I'm not asking you to eat it, not this one. Shit, I'd stop you if you tried," Seunghyun says. "I just wanted you to have it. To see it. It's done."

Daesung stares blankly at his offering on the table. "How do you feel?"

"Great. How do _you_ feel?"

"I'm fine. I'm glad it's... done. Thank you."

Seunghyun tugs Daesung to him. "Let me see your claws."

"Why?"

"Come on." He takes Daesung's hand in his and digs his thumb into his palm, squeezing, until Daesung shifts; his nails elongate and turn dark like slate, curving like an eagle's talons as they grow in length.

Seunghyun runs the pad of a finger along their curved edges, admiring. "I saw what you did to his hideous face. It was beautiful." As Daesung tucks his face into his neck, he grits his teeth and stresses, " _Goddamn_ , I'm so proud of you, Daesung."

Daesung flexes his fingers and stares down at them as if remembering the blood dripping off them.

He sees what Daesung is thinking, hears the thoughts running through his bowed head. "They would not have stopped at just your tail, Daesung. At the sight of blood those monsters would have wanted more," he says, urging Daesung to take what he is saying to heart. "These saved your _life_. Don't you ever be ashamed of them, or afraid of them."

A presence materializes at his back; Jiyong and the others are ready and waiting only on the two of them. "Time to go."

Seunghyun takes Daesung by the hand and, one after the other, the five of them file out their door for the last time.

They must make haste, must flee the city before its people awake and news of the grisly murders spreads. They leave most of their meager belongings behind so as not to draw suspicion, including Youngbae's and Seungri's rifles, which they have taken to bringing home with them in recent days. The weapons are too bulky to hide from prying eyes, too obvious to conceal now, when what they need is stealth.

Seungri quietly kicks up a fuss about it, and just as quietly, Youngbae scolds him. "We don't need them. Have you forgotten how to fight?"

Seungri scowls, letting out his claws and curling his fingers like maybe he has forgotten the feel of the deadly weapons on their ends. He mutters, "If course I haven't. I just think we should be giving ourselves every advantage."

"It wouldn't matter. They would never let us through, anyway," Jiyong points out. "I know you've grown fond of your gun, Seungri, but you seem to forget it was only yours on loan. It never truly belonged to you. Just leave it."

They reach the main gate only moments before dawn and are the first in line to depart. Anxiously they wait to be signed out, Jiyong handing over the carefully-kept parchments-- including Seungri's that he had so carelessly nearly torn in two on the first day-- that will grant them permission to roam outside the walls for the day. Their return is expected by nightfall.

But by the time the sun sets at this day's end, they will be far from here.

At least this time they are not half-starved to death as they begin their journey, Seunghyun thinks bitterly.

"Alright, you're good to go," says the man signing them out with a too-cheery smile. "Have fun out there, whatever you're off to do. You wolves are always wanting to go outside, aren't you? I wonder why."

"It's just nice to see the land again, you know?" Jiyong says, returning the man's grin with a convincing one of his own.

"Oh, sure," he says, nodding like he understands. Seunghyun does his best not to shoot him a dirty look. He could never understand.

"Well, I'll see you all again this evening."

Jiyong nods and turns to go. As one, the rest of them follow, and as always, Seunghyun slings an arm across Daesung's shoulders, protecting him, guiding him, keeping him close as they make their way forward. To his surprise, the other wolf returns the gesture, his own arm fitting like a steel bar against the small of Seunghyun's back in an uncommon show of solidarity.

They had dreams once, half-formed ideas and aspirations of a better life. Like ashes on the wind they were carried away, impossible to grasp through the screen of smoke that stung their eyes and burned their lungs as it found its way inside. Now, hands are reaching again, acting on blind faith that they are not too late to recapture what they lost.

With the others close at their sides-- family, friends, brothers, lovers, _pack--_ they step out into the light, the five of them again as one.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: [Hold Me Now](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDS2hEUWhiVFNOV0k) (Daesung)  
> [Yours Again](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDZEc0UEtGNHVKYjg) (Seunghyun & Daesung)  
> [The Outside](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDcmpLSm8wUkdOOHM) (Daesung)  
> [Best Is Yet To Come](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDdlhISXBGUS1ieFk) (All)


	9. Epilogue

He cannot say with certainty, as few things in this world are ever certain, but Seunghyun thinks they may have found it.

The trees are taller here, the soil softer, the grass greener, the animals larger and healthier. As far as the five of them can tell it is a place known by neither man nor wolf, perfectly immaculate. A virgin land that they boast the privilege of being the first to touch upon.

It took time, as all good things do. Just as it was before, living like nomads was hard on them, requiring Seunghyun and Daesung and their weary packmates to pick themselves up and move on as many times as they could gather their legs under them and set their feet to walking, one step after another. The key was to always keep moving, constant motion keeping their spirits afloat and their collective hope alive.

Then one day they simply opened up their eyes to the beauty of their surroundings, to the feel of the earth welcoming them upon it. They have everything they need here... which is admittedly not much.

They are living like wolves again. They are happy. They are recovering, physically and mentally.

Seunghyun has found himself a nice spot in the shade of a towering oak, its massive branches reaching far and wide to shield him from the worst of the sun's rays. His ears perk up at the sound of approaching footfalls, quietly picking their way toward him through a vast sea of grass.

Seunghyun is not concerned; he knew of the other wolf's presence long before he was in hearing range, his familiar scent aloft on the breeze.

Daesung stops a few feet away from him. With a smile in his voice, he says, "Seungri is in trouble again."

"In _trouble_ trouble? Or just the usual kind?" Seunghyun asks lazily.

"The usual kind," Daesung answers. "Jiyong and Youngbae are dealing with him right now." Even without turning his head to look, Seunghyun senses his gentle amusement, can _feel_ his mate's pleasant lack of concern radiating off of him.

"I bet he's loving that."

"Yeah," Daesung agrees, seeming pensive.

Seunghyun opens one eye lazily, peering up at Daesung from under his lashes. The other wolf wears a peaceful smile, a quiet contentedness about him that Seunghyun vows he will never again take for granted.

"Hey. Come here," Seunghyun says, patting the ground beside him. "With me."

Daesung joins him in lying in the tall grass, the stalks rising up around them as if screening them from everything in the world but the sky above and the sprawling, leafy branches of the enormous tree beside them. The giant oak stands guard, a silent sentinel overseeing its new charges. In its shadow Seunghyun feels very small... and very safe.

The city changed them, all of them, forever, in ways both bad and good.

Daesung's voice floats over to him, singing a pleasant tune, not for some crowd of humans watching him expectantly but for himself and for the wolf beside him. He sings not to prove himself, but to express himself.

Daesung pointedly avoids the songs taught him by humans, instead composing his own, the lyrics his creation, a message borne of years of hardship and a seemingly never-ending struggle for survival. It is an ode to burying one's teeth and talons in life's soft flesh and holding on relentlessly, plugging into its pulse and never letting go. This song is theirs alone, meant for his and Seunghyun's ears only, the irrefutable evidence of his mate's recovering health and happiness.

 _Even if the world ends, even if I lose everything,_  
_As long as you're here I don't need anything._

Daesung sings-- sings to the earth, sings to the sky, sings to _him_ \-- his voice airy and light, his expressed joy the most beautiful thing Seunghyun has ever beheld. And the truest, as well. He turns his face skyward, reveling in the freedom of the vast blue canvas above, and relishes the sound.

Life, the melody that carries them, goes on.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: [Who We Are](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-5QMXivZAzDYmhPVnhZdmg4RFE) (All)
> 
> Daesung's italicized lyrics at the end are from _Even If The World Ends_ off his D'slove album. Partial credit as well as inspiration for the closing line goes to his song _The Ballad I Want to Sing_ (or _Singer's Ballad_ ) off his D'scover album. The lyric is "The melody that carries us goes on." I merged that with the idea that, for them, "Life goes on."
> 
> I just want to say thank you to everyone who made it this far, all the way here to the end. This has been a huge undertaking for me, one that I am so, so pleased to finally share, even as angsty and awful as it is. I did piece together a soundtrack of sorts to accompany the fic based on music that I took inspiration from over the course of writing it: you can find it [at this link](http://daesungindistress.tumblr.com/post/151258544327/dreams-like-ashes-soundtrack). I've also updated the end of each chapter with the title(s) of any songs that accompany it. And thank you again, always, for reading... you brave souls!


End file.
